The Doctor is In
by RCS
Summary: One of Paragon's supergroups must deal with the release of two inmates from the Zig, one of whom has personal ties to the group's leader.
1. Chapter 1

**City of Heroes: The Doctor is In.**

Disclaimer: The setting of Paragon City, the Rogue Isles, and their environs are the property of Cryptic Studios and NC Soft. The characters herein, however, are mine.

**I**

Captain Jim Kilrain, the senior-ranking corrections officer at the prison commonly called the Zig, surveyed the damage from atop the prison wall. "I tell you, Warden, it seems like Arachnos breaks one of these lowlifes out every five minutes. It's a wonder we have any inmates left."

Warden Harry Lafferty nodded. "Who was this afternoon's benefactor of Arachnos' freedom lottery?"

Kilrain flipped through the pages on his clipboard. "According to reports, Arachnos freed the prisoner in Cell 2298—Woody Lawless, a.k.a. the Eco-Activist—and the prisoner in Cell 2299—David Grant, a.k.a. Dr. Robotico. Those are the only two so far..."

Kilrain's voice trailed off as he gazed skyward.

"Right on cue," Lafferty murmured. "Here come the capes."

Three figures alighted on the parapet beside the two prison officials. In any other town on Earth, these three might look odd. In Paragon City, however, they were a dime a dozen.

The tallest of the three was clad from head to toe in blue armor trimmed in red and white, white stars adorning his chest, and a red cape billowing off his shoulders, providing a patriotic motif. The American Crusader was the acknowledged leader of the superhero supergroup known as the Liberty Brigade.

The second figure gave Kilrain no small comfort. The Kheldian warshade, Shadow Vision, was in his native form that most in Paragon City called the Kheldian squid. Technically, he was called a Nictus, a scientifically-modified version of the Kheldian race that, as Kilrain understood it, tended to commit acts of evil and villainy. The warshades in Paragon City were reformed Nicti. Kilrain still didn't trust them. Once a criminal, always a criminal.

The third hero, a woman with dark hair spilling over her shoulders, was strikingly beautiful under her blue mask, and her lithe tanned athletic figure was clad in a blue and yellow outfit that looked like a one-piece bathing suit. She wore yellow-trimmed blue boots with matching gloves, and a bright yellow M adorned her ample chest. Although she now resided in Paragon City, Rhode Island, she took on the name of the state that was presumably her place of birth: Miss Michigan.

Kilrain found his gaze glued to Miss Michigan's bosom as the warden spoke with the heroes.

"Which prisoner did Arachnos free this time?" the Crusader asked in a deep voice that was altered by the helmet he wore.

"The Eco-Activist and Dr. Robotico," Lafferty said.

The armored hero exchanged a glance with Miss Michigan. Under her mask, her eyes betrayed her concern. She laid a tender palm on the Crusader's metal-encased forearm.

"They were presumably taken to the Rogue Isles like the others," Shadow Vision said.

The American Crusader activated his armor's anti-gravity field, and he leapt into the air and flew off in a blue and red streak. Miss Michigan and Shadow Vision followed.

"What was that all about?" Kilrain asked.

Lafferty shrugged. "I dunno. I'd better call Major Grant, let him know his brother's out."

---

The passenger door of the Arachnos flier lowered as soon as it touched down on the landing pad in Fort Darwin, one of Arachnos' outposts in the Rogue Isles. David Grant, clad in his blue and red armor that sported a yellow oscilloscope symbol on his chest, strode away from the craft, toward the ramp leading to the ground level.

"Hey!" cried his companion on the flight. "Hey, Dr. Robotico, where you going?"

Dave turned to look at the super-villain who stood just outside the craft. The Eco-Activist was a slender man with long greenish-brown hair and wearing a brown-trimmed green spandex suit with green gloves and boots, a tree emblem adorning his chest. The crazed eyes behind his round wire-framed glasses bored into Dave.

"None of your concern," Dave said, his voice altered by his helmet.

The Eco-Activist jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Kalindra is this way."

"I'm not going to see Kalindra."

"But she's Lord Recluse's liaison. He freed us, it's only proper we see his agent."

"I don't know why he freed me, but I don't intend to associate with a known villain like Lord Recluse."

"Hello, you're a convicted criminal, just like me."

"Wrongly convicted."

"And so was I."

"You're guilty of your crimes. I was framed."

"And so was I."

Dave took his pulse rifle off his back and thumbed off the safety. As he leveled it at the green-clad villain, the Arachnos guards only watched in curiosity.

The Eco-Activist held out his hands. "Whoa! Hey, go on. If you want to piss off Lord Recluse, that's your business. He only released us from prison, gave us our costumes and gear that had been confiscated by the authorities, that's all."

"I don't care about Recluse's agenda," Dave said. "All I want is revenge."

"Against who?"

"Against those whose lies sent me to the Zig. Crey Biotech."

"Ooohh!" the Eco-Activist exclaimed. "You're going after a big corporation? Ha, count me in. I never pass up a chance to strike out against Corporate America."

"I don't need your help."

The Eco-Activist raised a hand, and vines crawled up over the side of the fort's walls, across the landing pad to Dave's feet, and wrapped themselves around his lower legs. Dave glared at the snaking plants.

"Very well, I may have use of your talents," Dave growled. "Just remember, we're only going after Crey Biotech. No innocents get hurt."

"No one in Corporate America is innocent. They are all guilty of crimes against the planet."

Dave fired a shot into the ground a scant few inches from the Eco-Activist's feet. The green-clad tree-hugger backpedaled.

"All right, no innocents get hurt."

"Good. Let's go."

"_Domo arrigato_, Dr. Robotico."

Dave leveled his rifle at the Eco-Activist. "Say that one more time, and I will shoot you."

"Oh come on, you have to expect that with a name like Dr. Robotico."

Dave set his rifle into the rack on the back of his armor and punched a code into the keypad on his left forearm. From somewhere on the mainland, in a secret lab that no one—not even his brother—knew about, a pair of robotic drones activated. Within minutes, the battle drones alighted on either side of Dave. He looked at his creations with affection. Right now they were all he trusted in this world. He'd even given them names, calling one Hal and the other Joshua.

---

Upon the trio's return to the Liberty Brigade's base of operations, Benjamin Grant doffed his helmet to reveal golden hair that was still cropped close from his days in the U.S. Marine Corps. He turned the helmet around in his hands to look into the white eye screen that amplified his vision when he wore it.

He'd created the American Crusader armor. He'd always been good with engineering, had even majored in engineering at the Naval Academy. He'd been an infantry officer in the Corps, but he'd dabbled with inventions on his off time. After seeing so many of his brother Marines killed or wounded around him in Iraq, he wanted to create a set of body armor for the men in the field.

As good as he was, however, he was not nearly as talented in engineering as his younger brother Dave. Dave was the technical genius, and it was Dave who'd helped Ben create the armor that was now recognizable as the American Crusader armor. After Ben had returned Stateside from Iraq, he and Dave had set to work on the armor in Dave's lab in Paragon City, where Crey Biotech had its headquarters. They worked on it privately, expending a sizeable portion of the Grant family fortune to build it.

After the armor was complete, they took it to Crey's board of directors. Dave's employers, however, refused to develop the armor for mass production, citing cost and production concerns. The armor sat in storage when Ben's outfit returned to Iraq.

During his second tour, Ben's tenure in Paragon City haunted him. The people there were tormented by powerful gangs of super-powered villains, and even the multitude of heroes congregating there barely kept them in check. With his tour completed, he again returned Stateside and went on leave to his home state of Michigan. There, he'd met Kari Wilson, a University of Michigan anthropology student and beauty pageant winner who eventually became his wife.

Deciding to put his and Dave's creation to good use, Ben resigned his commission and returned to Paragon City, where he added a little patriotic flair to the armor and donned it as the American Crusader. Little good it did. He couldn't even help his little brother.

Slender fingers settled onto his armor-clad arm, and Ben turned around to face Kari Grant, nee Wilson, who was still wearing her Miss Michigan outfit sans mask.

"Arachnos freed Dave," he said.

She nodded. "I know."

"Recluse has been freeing super-powered prisoners from the Zig for months now. Almost as fast as they're being incarcerated. Why?"

"Recluse has his agenda, honey."

"But why Dave? He shouldn't have even been in the Zig in the first place. He was convicted of a white collar crime, not anything severe enough to be sent to the Zig."

Kari said nothing, but wrapped him in her embrace. He held her in his armored arms, inhaling the flowery fragrance of her hair.

Unlike Ben, whose powers came from the technology of his armor, Kari's powers were derived from magic. Specifically, the amulet she wore hidden under her outfit, as if it were possible to hide anything under a garment that covered not much more than a single-piece swimsuit.

The amulet had come from an Ojibwa burial site in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, a site that Kari's anthropology class had been studying. Kari was very interested in Ojibwa culture, being part Ojibwa herself. When she'd found the amulet, it had nearly jumped from the ground into her hand. Perhaps it was her Ojibwa blood that drew the amulet to her. Regardless, once she came into contact with it she discovered she could magically heal the body as well as throw bolts of lightning. So she joined Ben in Paragon City and created a costume to fight villainy at his side.

A chirp sounded in his armor. Kari stepped back out of their embrace, and Ben flipped up the protective cover of the communicator attached to his left forearm. The LCD screen indicated a call was being forwarded from his and Kari's home phone. He tabbed the connect key.

"Hello," he said.

"Ben Grant," said the voice of Warden Lafferty, a voice he remembered because he'd just heard it while on the wall of the Zig not a half hour ago.

"This is he."

"Hi, Major, this is Warden Harry Lafferty."

"Hi, Warden."

Those in the law enforcement community of Paragon City still called Ben by his Marine Corps rank of major as a term of respect. After settling in Paragon City, and dipping into the Grant family fortune, Ben and Kari had opened up Grant Technologies, a technical firm to develop new technologies with which to give the city's police force more firepower in dealing with the super-powered bad guys plaguing their streets. And it proved to be lucrative work, helping the Grants to finance their crime fighting endeavors.

"Lord Recluse has released more prisoners from the Zig," the warden said.

Ben feigned mild surprise. "Again? I've heard about those breakouts on the news. But why call me?"

"Because this time Dave was one of the inmates released."

Ben feigned greater shock. "Are you sure?"

"Positive. The Arachnos agents even got his armor out of impound."

Naturally, Ben thought. Arachnos was only interested in super-powered inmates, and without his armor Dave was a normal guy. Like Ben without his armor, or Kari without her amulet.

"Thank you for letting me know," Ben said.

"You're welcome. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a hell of a follow-up report to fill out."

"Yes. Good-bye." Ben disconnected and flipped down the communicator's protective cover.

---

"Here it comes, Doc," the Eco-Activist said in glee. "Oh boy, here it comes, spewing noxious fumes into our atmosphere."

Dave magnified the image inside his helmet's face screen, revealing the details of the approaching armored car. The vehicle belonged to Confederated Security Unlimited, a security company owned by the Crey Biotech conglomerate. Dave suspected that alongside its legitimate business moving money for banks, Confederated Security transported funds for Crey's less public endeavors.

Such as its genetic mutation program and science experiments on creating super-powered beings.

"Remember," Dave said, "the guards are not the enemy. They are low-paid employees just trying to do their jobs. They are not to be harmed."

"Whatever," the Eco-Activist said. "They shouldn't be working for Crey."

Dave rested a hand on the back of his companion's neck, his armored fingers wrapping around his slender neck. "They don't know they're working for Crey."

"You're the boss, Dr. Robotico, you're the boss."

"Good. Now do your thing."

The Eco-Activist scrambled down the embankment and raised his arms. Thorny vines grew from the ground on either side of the road and wove themselves into a net. The driver of the armored truck saw the impediment too late, and tires screeched as he hit the brakes. The vehicle slammed into the vines and jerked to a stop.

One of the guards emerged from the vehicle, his side arm drawn. The Eco-Activist unleashed a salvo of plant matter, striking the guard unconscious. At least, Dave hoped he was unconscious.

Dave sent his drones into action. Hal and Joshua landed behind the truck. Their lasers fired, burning open the locked rear compartment. Dave activated his armor's anti-gravity device, and he soared from his observation post to the rear of the truck.

He ensured his pulse rifle was set to stun, and he shot both guards in the rear of the truck. Dave peered at the racks of safety deposit boxes lining the walls.

"Whoa," the Eco-Activist breathed. "What kinds of riches do you suppose are contained in those boxes?"

Dave took one of the boxes from its rack and forced it open with his armor-enhanced strength. Instead of jewels and other valuables, as the Eco-Activist apparently hoped, the box contained several vials of differently colored liquid.

"What is that?" the Activist asked.

"Genetic serum," Dave said. "It's for Crey's illegal genetic experiments."

Dave set the box back into its rack and dragged the two guards out of the back. He pulled all the guards to a safe distance from the truck and ordered the Eco-Activist to stand clear. Once everyone was at a safe enough distance, Dave ordered Hal and Joshua to open fire. The drones' lasers strafed the truck, detonating its fuel tank.

"Do you know how much that serum would be worth to Lord Recluse?" the Eco-Activist demanded.

"He would have misused it as Crey would."

Dave looked skyward, watching as an aircraft approached. A dark blue swept-wing jet swooped low and came to a stop, hovering on V/TOL nozzles. It alighted gently not far from the burning truck.

The rear half of the cockpit canopy slid back, and a man in a dark blue caped costume emerged. His yellow belt and the yellow wolf's head adorning his chest contrasted with the rest of his outfit.

"Bloody hell," the Eco-Activist groaned. "Another one of Paragon's costumed do-gooders."

Dave knew the costumed hero as Richard Strader, one of the engineers working for his brother's firm, but the rest of Paragon knew him as the Blue Wolf.

Blue Wolf strode clear of his aircraft, touching a device on his belt. A force field shimmered around him, fitting as closely as his costume did. He relied on technology for his powers, but in a different manner than did Dave or Ben. Blue Wolf's suit was as flexible as wool or cotton, but was virtually impervious to most impact hits. Further, his formfitting force shield provided additional resistance to damage. His strength was enhanced by cybernetic implants.

A second figure emerged from Blue Wolf's aircraft. The raven-haired woman's tanned athleticism was on full display, as she wore what amounted to a leather bikini with leather bracers on her forearms and leather wraps around her feet and lower legs. Hyppolyta was not from modern times. A Crey Biotech temporal experiment had resulted in Hyppolyta being plucked out of her ancient Amazonian village and brought to modern day Paragon City. She was an expert archer, and she deployed many of the Blue Wolf's inventions with her bow.

She nocked an arrow to her bow and let fly. The shaft passed over the Eco-Activist's head and burst with a mild explosive. A net descended over the Eco-Activist and ensnared him.

Blue Wolf approached Dave and the unconscious guards at his feet, but on Dave's orders Hal and Joshua interposed themselves between the hero and their master.

Blue Wolf delivered a powerful punch that sent Joshua flying backward.

Hal opened fire with its lasers. The energy beams were absorbed by Blue Wolf's protective field. The hero delivered a jab to Hal's faceplate, then fired off a haymaker. The drone flew backward.

Joshua had recovered, and it unleashed a heavy stream of laser fire. The energy beams overwhelmed Blue Wolf's protective field, and he dropped to his knees. Another blast toppled him face down onto the ground.

Hyppolyta launched an arrow that struck and exploded, opening up a panel on Hal's flank. The drone stumbled and fell.

Joshua turned and, under Dave's instruction, fired a stunning blast at the scantily-clad Amazon. Hyppolyta slumped to the ground.

Dave tore the netting off the Eco-Activist before moving to inspect the damaged Hal.

"Oooh, hostages," the Eco-Activist said.

"Don't even think about it," Dave said. "We accomplished what we came to do. Now it's time to leave."

"But..."

"We're not taking hostages."

Dave removed the memory chip from Hal's CPU and set the self destruct sequence. As Dave, the Eco-Activist, and Joshua left the scene, the lifeless shell that had once been Hal exploded into unrecoverable debris. Once Dave returned to his lab and inserted the memory chip into another drone, Hal would be reborn.

---

Richard Strader lounged on the couch inside the Liberty Brigade's base, the cowl of his Blue Wolf costume drawn back off his head to reveal his trimmed auburn hair. He ached all over, especially his head. Kari Grant, dressed in her informal street clothes, offered cold packs to both Richard and Hyppolyta, who sat on the couch beside him.

Hyppoltya had two identities in the modern world. The world knew her as Hyppolyta, the Amazon warrior drawn to the modern world by a Crey experiment, and as Lyta Strader, an immigrant from Greece who was married to Grant Technologies engineer Richard Strader.

"It was Dave and that tree-hugger fella," Richard said, his voice betraying the slight drawl of his North Carolina roots.

"The Eco-Activist," Lyta said, her English heavily accented. Her Amazonian tongue wasn't Greek, but it sounded close enough to Greek that most Americans couldn't tell the difference.

Ben Grant, also dressed in informal street clothes, sat across from Richard and Lyta on another couch. His gaze was cast down at the floor. Kari sat beside him, lightly stroking his hair.

"He didn't take any money," Richard said. "He just blew the truck up with everything inside."

"It was a shipment of Crey mutagens," said Shadow Vision, standing nearby in the form of his human host, Derek Nox. Derek—wearing a dress shirt and slacks with his signature sunglasses, white fedora, and white vest—had been a professor of literature and lore before merging with the Nictus known only as Core Umbra to become the warshade Shadow Vision.

Richard understood complex technology well enough, but he still didn't fully understand what happened when human and Nictus merged to create the warshades.

"How would you know that, sport?" Richard asked.

"I have sources within Crey," Derek said.

"Some of your Nictus buddies?"

"They wish to remain anonymous."

"Whoever they are, they do give us good intel on Crey's activities, Richard," Ben said. "Too bad none of it is admissible."

"Or clears Dave's name," Kari said.

"He's not gonna maintain his innocence knocking over armored cars," Richard said. "Or by attacking those of us who are his friends."

"Your ego is bruised, love," Lyta said.

"Among other things."

An alert on the central computer sounded. Ben jumped from the couch and accessed the mainframe via the nearest keyboard.

"Bank robbery in Atlas Park," he said.

"Another one?" Richard said.

"Yep. Another super-powered villain not known to be associated with any of the gangs operating in Paragon. Probably one of Lord Recluse's new recruits. Those guys not only rob the banks, but they seem to get a kick out of destroying everything in their path on the way to the bank."

"Who's closest?" Kari asked.

"Not one of us," Ben said. "Looks like one of the other supergroups has a handle on this one."


	2. Chapter 2

**II**

Ben Grant soared high above the Steel Canyon district of Paragon City, his red, white, and blue armor glistening in the sun as his red cape fluttered in the wake of his flight. He scanned the streets below with the magnified vision of his helmet's eye screen. He dipped low for a closer look at a pair of Outcast gang members attempting to rob a hapless woman of her purse. Even as Ben brought his armor's energy beams on line, a costumed hero sped onto the scene at super speed and engaged the Outcasts. The unknown hero, one of many in Paragon, seemed to have control of the situation, and Ben began to ascend.

He cleared a monorail track of the Paragon City Transit Authority and climbed at a steeper angle. As he soared over one of Steel Canyon's many towering skyscrapers he eased up on his antigravity field and touched down lightly on the building's roof. He flipped up the protective cover of his forearm communicator and punched in a code.

"Hey, Ben," said Richard's voice through his helmet receiver. "How's the patrol on your end?"

"Just an Outcast robbing, but another hero got to it first. No sign of Dave or his green friend. You?"

"Nothing over here in Skyway except a few drugged up Trolls rampaging around. Lyta and I are gonna stop and lend a hand."

"Be careful."

"You know we will."

Kari joined in the conference call. "I'm up here in the northern part of Steel Canyon. No sign of Dave or the Eco-Activist up here."

"Derek's at the university," Ben said. "I think I'm going to head there."

"Wait up, honey, I'll go with you."

"You have my locator beacon on your wayfinder. I'll be up here enjoying the view of the city until you arrive."

---

"It's me, Sarah," Dave said into the microphone beside the door.

"Voice print recognized," said the alluring feminine voice of the lab's central computer. "Welcome back, Dr. Grant. It has been too long since you were home last."

"Far too long."

The thick door slid to one side, allowing Dave entry into the underground bunker that housed his laboratory. As he passed through the foyer, the door slid closed and sealed itself with a hiss. He strode between racks and stands of robotic parts until he arrived at the landing pad under the overhead doors. Joshua stood waiting on the pad, alone.

Dave turned sharply and headed into one of the adjacent storage rooms. A dozen or so battle drones standing cold and lifeless within. Dave removed his armor's helmet and set it aside on one the workbenches, then fished Hal's memory chip from his belt's EM-shielded container. He knelt before one of the waiting drones and inserted the chip. As he stepped back, the drone came back to life in a whirr of servos.

Hal was reborn.

"Come, my friend," Dave said. "We have to do something so you and your brother are not quite so susceptible to anyone who might want to impede my justice against Crey."

He picked up his helmet and went into another storage room, where he divested himself of his armor. Throwing a lab coat on over the sweat pants and sweat shirt he'd worn under his armor, he headed to his desk. He sat behind it and peered at the desktop terminal. Sarah's air filtration system and maintenance drones had kept his lab meticulously clean even after sitting unattended since his incarceration.

He booted up his desktop computer and sat back to cast his gaze at the one adornment he kept on his desk. It was the wedding photo of Ben and Kari, which included Dave as best man.

Ben was a lucky man to have ensnared a beauty like Kari. Imagine that, his older brother had been able to settle down with a woman who'd been a finalist in the Miss America pageant.

Dave logged onto the Internet and surfed various technology sites.

"Sarah, could you do something for me?"

"Name it, Dr. Grant."

"I need you to infiltrate the central core of D.A.T.A. Technology System's computer."

"As you wish, Dr. Grant. Anything else?"

"Yes, actually. I planted a tracking device on someone. Can you tell me where he's at?"

"He is currently heading in the direction of Paragon University."

"You're kidding. I told that numbskull to lay low."

---

Woody Lawless, a.k.a. the Eco-Activist, strode the campus grounds of Paragon University, looking inconspicuous in his ratty jeans, tie-dyed t-shirt, and sandals. His greenish-brown hair, dyed dark brown, was tied back in a ponytail. He offered friendly smiles to passing co-eds, but few reciprocated.

He stopped at a drinking fountain and bent to take a drink. As he sucked in water from the arcing stream, he let his eyes wonder to a pair of co-eds talking beside a tree. He fixated on the girl wearing the skirt.

With a slight gesture of his hand, one of the tree's branches dipped down and snagged itself on the co-ed's skirt. As the branch rose, it brought the skirt up well above her waist to reveal a pair of lacy pink panties. The girl shrieked and yanked her skirt free of the offending branch, smoothing the garment down to hide her unmentionables.

Several young men who'd witnessed the incident stared in appreciative disbelief at the angered girl.

"Who did this!" she bellowed. "I'm suing! This school will hear from my lawyer!"

Woody chuckled to himself and moved away from the drinking fountain. This was a win-win, he thought. He got to see a pretty girl's underwear, and the girl could make a small fortune from the litigation lottery.

He headed into the campus library and seated himself behind one of the many Internet-connected computers contained therein. He took a student card from his jeans pocket, a card belonging to one Henry Potsdam. Poor clueless Henry probably hadn't yet realized that as he was stuffing his face in an outdoor café some nearby rosebushes had picked his pocket.

Woody used the card's name and student ID number to gain access to the library computer, and as soon as he was logged on he accessed the Internet search engine. Surfing through several environmentalist websites, he complied a list of corporate offenders who would feel his wrath.

Doctor Robotico had wanted him to lay low, but Woody had decided that he preferred another course of action. If that techno-geek wrapped in that metallic technological monstrosity wasn't going to strike out at corporate giant Crey right away, then Woody figured he had a little time to seek out additional targets.

---

Ben and Kari touched down on the campus grounds, and as soon as they landed they received the briefest of glances from students and faculty alike. Costumed heroes were frequent enough in Paragon City that the arrival of the American Crusader and Miss Michigan warranted little attention. Aside from the male eyes latched onto Kari's skimpy blue and yellow outfit, that is.

They entered the section of the campus that housed the literary department, and they wove through passing students and faculty as they found their way to Professor Derek Nox's private office. When the couple entered, they found Derek at his desk, his feet propped up on its surface. Clad in his white vest over a dress shirt and khaki pants, and still wearing his sunglasses, he read a copy of Sun-Tzu's _Art of War _in its native Mandarin. On the desk under his crossed ankles was a leather-bound tome whose script Ben didn't recognize.

"Greetings," Derek said. "What brings two of Paragon's heroes to my humble office?"

Ben closed the office door, and Derek reached under his desk to depress a toggle. The perimeter of the office shimmered briefly as a Grant Technologies patented sound-buffering field, jointly designed by Ben and Richard, ensured their privacy. Ben doffed his helmet, and Kari pulled her mask down to hang loosely around her neck.

Derek snapped the book closed and took his feet down off his desk to sit up straight. As he stood, his shoulders squared in the manner he normally assumed while wearing the gold and blue hero costume that he usually donned as the human aspect of Shadow Vision.

Kari pointed to the tome on Derek's desk, the one with the unintelligible script. "What have you got there?"

"Something recovered from the wreckage of a Rikti ship. It tells the tales of another plane of reality, another Earth, where costumed heroes also protect humanity. In this particular tale, a man from another world with incredible powers and a man in a dark cowl join forces to combat two villains, a man with no hair and vast intellect pairing with a white faced maniac assuming a persona from a playing card."

"Always the story collector," Ben remarked.

"It is who I am," Derek said. "I have further information from one of my contacts inside Crey Biotech."

"I'm listening."

"According to my contact, Dave was on but one team of many working on a compartmentalized project for Crey. It's unknown yet what that project was, but Dave wasn't lying when he testified at his trial that he'd started learning some of the details of the other project teams. To you or me or most people, the teams would appear to be working on entirely unrelated projects."

"But Dave saw the relationship between the teams' work," Kari said.

"Dave sometimes was too smart for his own good," Ben said. "So the Crey board of directors found out that Dave knew more than he should have, and they discredited him with an embezzling charge."

"It may not have even been the entire board of directors," Derek said. "Only those members overseeing the project. And possibly Countess Crey herself, though I imagine she'll have arranged for herself to have plausible deniability."

The warshade looked out of the corner of his eye at his computer monitor. He gestured to his visitors before reaching down to deactivate his sound buffer field. Ben and Kari donned their headgear just as a knock sounded on the door.

"Enter," Derek said.

A middle-aged man in a suit walked in. "Dr. Nox, I'd heard you had some hero-types in here...oh, hi."

Ben dipped his head in greeting. "Hello, citizen," he said in his altered voice.

"We had an incident in the student square, if you could lend us a hand."

Ben looked at Kari, and she nodded. The two heroes left Derek in his office as they followed the university administrator outside to the student square. Several faculty and students were huddled around a park bench, and they parted to form a path for the approaching heroes. Two girls sat on the bench, one of whom whose lovely face was livid with rage.

Ben held back a pace or two as Kari knelt before the seated girls.

"What happened here?" she asked.

The calmer of the two girls pointed to a tree across the way from the bench. "That tree attacked her."

Ben looked over his shoulder at the offending vegetation. "How long ago?"

"Ten minutes."

"What did it do?" Kari asked gently.

"One of its branches lifted her skirt up and showed the whole campus her underwear."

The angry girl fired a glare at her friend.

"She asked," the friend said.

"What do you think?" the administrator asked. "Super powers?"

"Plant control," Ben said. "We've seen this before."

Kari stood to face her husband.

"That's Celia Clarkson," she whispered. "She's one of my Anthropology 101 students. She's had a chip on her shoulder since her first day of class."

In addition to helping Ben with Grant Technologies, Kari worked part time at Paragon University as an anthropology professor.

Ben flipped up his forearm communicator's cover and tapped a code. "American Crusader to Blue Wolf."

"Blue Wolf here," Richard responded.

"Are you still in Skyway?"

"Affirmative."

"American Crusader to Shadow Vision."

"Shadow Vision here," said Derek, apparently still up in his office.

"Are you anywhere close to Paragon University?"

"I am."

"We need you ASAP."

"I'll be there."

In less than two minutes, Derek descended to land near Ben and Kari. Dressed in his dark gold costume trimmed in blue with a white eye symbol on his chest, a gold-trimmed blue cape flowing from his shoulders, and a high-tech set of goggles over his eyes, he moved to stand with his fellow supergroup teammates.

"Oh wow," a young man commented. "These guys take a frat prank way too seriously."

Ben ignored the remark. "Thanks for coming so quickly, Shadow."

"What's the situation, A.C.?" Derek asked.

"A familiar friend showed up on campus. Someone who can control plants."

"The gentleman who attacked that armored car with Robotico."

"Indeed."

"I think that's him coming out of the library," Kari said, pointing.

A thirty-ish man in jeans and a tie-dyed shirt sauntered down the sidewalk. As soon as he saw the trio of heroes watching him, he froze in mid-step. He raised his arms above him, and vegetation immediately thickened and grew around the civilians huddled around the girls on the bench. As students and faculty were ensnared by the writhing vines, the Eco-Activist bolted.

Derek immediately pelted the attacking vines at the roots with bolts of dark energy, withering the vegetation to free some of the imprisoned civilians.

Ben and Kari advanced on the Eco-Activist, Ben arming the energy emitters on his armor. He extended his arms and canted his fists downward as the emitters extended from his gauntlets. He unleashed a torrent of stunning energy at the villain. As the bolts of energy slammed into the Eco-Activist, the blasts slammed him to the ground.

The Eco-Activist catapulted to his feet and flung a barrage of thorns at Ben. The unnaturally hard missiles struck Ben in the chest, more than one punching through his armor. Ben pulled the thorns free, and Kari aimed a hand toward her husband to pour her own magical energy into him, closing his wounds.

Ben opened fire again, throwing the villain to the ground with a barrage of energy bursts. The Eco-Activist attempted to rise, but Kari hurled a bolt of lightning at him. As electric blue arcs swirled around him, the Eco-Activist fought to regain his footing. Ben and Kari simultaneously launched attacks at the villain, slamming him with energy blasts and lightning bolts.

The Eco-Activist slumped unconscious to the ground. Ben stepped forward to take the villain into custody.

"A.C.! Look out!" Derek cried. "Three o'clock high!"

Ben looked to his right and above just as a pair of robotic drones soared overhead. They landed and centered their weapons at him.

Laser fire raked Ben full in the armored chest, and he stumbled backward.

"No!" Kari cried, only to be transfixed by an energy pulse striking her from behind. She drew upon her amulet's power and surrounded both herself and Ben with a healing aura.

Derek, abandoning his work on freeing the entangled civilians, launched a salvo of dark bolts at the red-and-blue-armored figure with the rifle who'd just hit Kari with a stun blast.

Ben turned around to face Dave, who hovered six feet above the sidewalk. The elder Grant sighted down his armored forearm, preparing to fire.

"I just came for him," Dave said, nodding his helmeted head toward the downed Eco-Activist.

"He's our prisoner," Ben said.

Dave saluted and soared skyward. Ben leaped into the air to follow. He activated his electrical fence emitter, firing at Dave. Arcs of electrical energy surrounded Dave, snaring him and keeping him in place. Dave tapped his belt buckle, and with a brief flash of light he winked out of sight.

Ben came to a stop and pivoted around to look back toward Dave's drones. Both robots rocketed skyward, and in mid-flight they winked out of sight one by one.

Ben activated his communicator. "He has a teleporter device. See if he put a locator beacon on the Eco-Activist."

Derek, still on the ground, knelt beside the unconscious villain. Just as he began his examination, the Eco-Activist vanished.

Ben descended and came to a landing between Kari and Derek.

"Are you all right?" he asked her.

Kari nodded. "I'm fine. He only had it set to stun."

"It will be harder to capture him now that he has a teleportation device and an antigravity generator in his armor," Derek commented.

Ben activated his communicator. "American Crusader to Blue Wolf."

"Go for Blue Wolf."

"The situation at the university is secure. Continue your patrol."

"Ten-four," Richard said. "Wolf out."

"Crusader out." Ben closed down the communicator. "Let's get back to base."

---

"That was stupid," Dave said. "You reveal your presence just to look up a girl's skirt?"

The Eco-Activist, still blindfolded, lifted pleading hands. "Come on, I've been in prison since whenever."

"You had to know that using your powers would raise suspicions, especially so soon after your vines were used to help in our attack on that armored car."

"Oh come on, how could that attack be linked to a sneak peak at some pink panties?"

"A tree would not move on its own like that, and that is Paragon University. Someone there would recognize that tree's assault as the result of super powers, and a report would be sent out."

"But—"

"Silence."

Dave whipped the blindfold off the Eco-Activist now that they were safely ensconced within Dave's bunker lab.

"Watch him, Sarah," Dave said.

"As you wish, Dr. Grant."

A pair of internal security cannons zeroed in on where the Eco-Activist sat. Satisfied that his companion would now stay out of mischief, Dave returned to his work.

He stooped down behind the drone before him. He attached a standardized force field generator he had copied from D.A.T.A. Systems plans and stood back from the newest addition to his cadre of drones. He tapped the control pad on his forearm.

"Wake up, Sonny."

The drone whirred to life.

"Another battle drone?" the Eco-Activist asked.

"A protector drone," Dave said. "Observe."

He tapped an order into his control pad, and Sonny shuffled across the lab to stand before Hal and Joshua. A port opened in Sonny's face plate, and an emitter emerged.

A force field bubble appeared around Hal first, then Joshua.

"Nice," the Eco-Activist said. "Will he be able to put a bubble around me, too? I didn't like getting hit by the American Crusader's energy bolts."

Dave directed at hard look at the Activist. "This modification is for the drones only. Now, what were you doing at that university?"

"Surfing the web in the campus library."

"Just some innocent surfing?"

"Of course."

"I can have my lab's A.I. log into the library's network and track the sites you searched."

"All right, all right, Doc, I looked up some environmentalist sites. Okay?"

Dave grunted. The Eco-Activist was probably going to be a problem for him.


	3. Chapter 3

**III**

Richard yanked the control stick hard right to bank his sleek two-seater jet, maneuvering between the support stanchions of one of the Skyway City district's many elevated highways.

"You are...what they say...showing off," Hyppolyta, sitting in the seat beside him, admonished in her soft accented voice.

Richard grinned. "I'm showing off for you, baby."

Lyta shook her head. "I'm not impressed by reckless flying, love."

"It's not reckless when I know what I'm doing." He pitched the aircraft into a climb. "Oh, wait, did we return that DVD to the Video Hut?"

"I think it is still on the kitchen table."

"Oh, man, we're gonna have to pay a late charge now." He adjusted the range of the radar scope. "Anyway, what did you think of the movie?"

"An inaccurate portrayal. The siege of Troy did not happen that way."

"What, were you there?"

"No, but I had heard what happened from first hand accounts of warriors who were. It would be like Ben telling you what is truly happening in Iraq without the distortions of the storytellers."

"You mean reporters."

"I mean storytellers."

"I'll concede your point."

"And I had met Achilles before he joined Agamemnon's army. While Achilles was a handsome man, he did not have Brad Pitt's blond hair."

"Now you're just nitpicking."

"What is 'nitpicking?'"

"Never mind."

Richard barrel-rolled the jet, earning a startled cry from Lyta. He banked around and peered out the cockpit's canopy at the nearby elevated highway. Cars and pedestrians alike traversed its surface, but no sign of any further Troll activity.

He passed over the highway and dipped low to pass underneath the adjacent highway. As he climbed once again, he eased back on the throttle and performed a shallow bank to give himself and Lyta a clear view of the surface of the highway they had just passed under.

The jet suddenly jerked, and a globe of electrical arcs enveloped the aircraft.

"Crap," Richard said through clenched teeth. "I think we just drew the attention of one of those Clockwork fellas." He thumbed the communicator activation switch. "Blue Wolf to Liberty Brigade, mayday. Struck by Clockwork Tesla cage. Losing altitude. Mayday, mayday, mayday."

Richard fought the frozen controls with his cybernetically-enhanced super strength, hoping to at least glide the falling aircraft away from densely populated areas. In a district like Skyway, however, there were few places to safely land—crash—a disabled jet.

"The way I look at it, baby," Richard said, "we have two choices. We can ride her down, or we can eject. And I can give you two reasons why we shouldn't eject. First, if we eject we can be pretty sure she'll crash somewhere where she'll cause injury. Second, when we clear the plane we'll pass through that Tesla cage, and I ain't too keen on doing that."

"So we have but one choice."

Richard lowered the landing gear. "Yeah, we're riding her down. Hang onto me, baby, this is gonna be a rough one."

Lyta snuggled against him, sliding her arms around his torso. Richard activated his personal force field. The field enveloped both Lyta and himself.

He succeeded in maneuvering the plane over one of the elevated highways, giving less distance between them and a landing surface. The aircraft hit pavement hard and bounced up. It came down again with the squeal of protesting rubber, and Richard simultaneously put the thrusters in reverse and jammed the brake pedal.

The plane came to a stop at the edge of the elevated highway, its nose hanging over the parapet. Just as the jet came to rest, the Tesla cage faded away.

Richard opened the canopy and emerged from the cockpit to inspect his plane's damage. As he dropped to the pavement, he noted hordes of Clockwork robots advancing on the two heroes from both directions of the highway.

He put a finger to his cowl over his communicator earpiece, activating the comms. "Uh, guys, you might want to hurry. We're down on State 302, and it's Clockwork central down here."

Lyta emerged from the cockpit with bow in hand. She had one of her acid arrows nocked, and she sighted down its shaft at the first Clockwork cog coming from the north. Richard looked to the south, his eyes locked on a Clockwork Tesla knight.

---

"There have been tales of super-powered beings since the dawn of human culture," Kari explained to her Anthropology 101 class. "Who here hasn't heard of the super strength of Hercules and Beowulf, or the invulnerability of Achilles, or the super speed of Atalanta?"

One student noticeably missing from the classroom was Celia Clarkson, the victim of the Eco-Activist's assault by tree. According to the dean, Celia had missed several of her classes as she and her parents met with lawyers.

One of Kari's brighter students, a pretty blond-haired girl named Jenna Starr, raised a hand. Kari gestured to the girl.

"I thought we're seeing so many super-powered people nowadays because Statesman and Lord Recluse opened Pandora's Box," Jenna said.

"That might be the catalyst for the modern era of super-powered beings. When super-powered beings began popping up left and right after that event, other powerful individuals saw the potential of their own stable of super-powered beings, so organizations like Crey Biotech began experimenting with creating their own."

"My dad is a techno-hero," said a young man in the back of the room. "He wears this really cool gadget suit created by my mom. His powers have nothing to do with Pandora's Box or Crey or any of them."

"Technology-based heroes are indeed common in Paragon. My husband—" She wanted to kick herself. "—knows two such heroes. Being an engineer, he's sometimes called upon to work on their equipment."

"Mrs. Grant," said another young male student, "is it true you came in first runner-up in the Miss America pageant?"

"That's not on topic."

"But it is a cultural question, and this is an anthropology class."

"Yes, it's true."

"Then who was the winner?"

"Miss Georgia."

"Whoa, then she must have been, like, a total fox or something, because you're totally hot."

Kari was glad now that Celia wasn't in class. The militant young woman would have spouted something about the objectification of women or some other mantra like that.

A quiet chirping began to sound from the communicator earpiece she wore hidden under her long raven tresses. She glanced down at her watch, saw she had fifteen more minutes before the scheduled end of class.

"That's all I really have for you today," Kari said. "Make sure you read Chapter 17 before we meet again next week."

The class stood up and began to file out. Kari turned toward the whiteboard as she slid her hand under her hair to touch the earpiece, activating it. A computer voice from the Liberty Brigade headquarters central mainframe broadcast Blue Wolf's distress call, giving his location coordinates.

"Ms. Grant," said someone from behind her.

Kari turned around and looked into the blue eyes of Jenna Starr. The young twenty-one-year-old girl, eight years Kari's junior, was not only a smart girl, but she had an infectiously positive attitude about life. Of course she had a lot going for her—beauty, intelligence, a pleasant personality, a cute boyfriend on the Paragon City Fire Department.

"What can I do for you, Jenna?"

"If both your parents have super powers, can you inherit powers of your own?"

"That's a question for a biology professor, Jenna. My field is anthropology. Do your parents have powers?"

"No, but my boyfriend Jack has super-powered parents. They're both mutants, which means their powers are genetic, so it stands to reason Jack should inherit something."

"Does he have powers?"

"Not that either one of us can tell."

Kari quickly scrawled a name and office number on a Post-It note. "Here, look up Dr. Vincent McQuay. His field is genetics. Tell him I sent you to him. He can give you a better answer than I can."

Jenna took the Post-It. "Thank you, Ms. Grant."

As the girl left the classroom, Kari gathered up her materials and stuffed them into her book bag. She headed to her office and locked the door behind her. Tossing her bag onto her desk, she opened her closet door and pulled out a suitcase she had hidden in the back.

She stripped off her skirt and blouse, revealing the blue and yellow Miss Michigan costume she wore underneath. She opened the suitcase and pulled out her blue and yellow boots and gloves, kicking off her pumps. Placing her mask on her face, she opened her office window and leaped out, soaring into the air.

---

"You have a meeting with Mr. Chalmers at two o'clock also," Regina Miller, Ben's administrative assistant, added.

Ben groaned. Rupert Chalmers was the only lawyer on the payroll of Grant Technologies, and that was only because the bureaucratic climate of today's business world was so byzantine due to government over-regulation that he needed the bloodsucker just to keep the firm compliant.

Chalmers was good at his job, but that didn't mean Ben enjoyed his company. Chalmers was a trifle grating in person.

"He probably wants to talk about the patent we have pending," Ben said.

"He thinks the engineers who worked on it should be there with you."

"All right, make sure they get a memo."

"Dr. Strader is out of his office at the moment."

"I know, I sent him out on a product evaluation errand. Blackberry him on the meeting with Chalmers."

"Yes, sir."

The earpiece Ben had tucked in his ear began chirping.

"I think my wife is trying to get ahold of me," he said.

"I'll give you some privacy, sir."

As Regina stood and left Ben's office, he tapped the earpiece to activate it. The Liberty Brigade HQ's central mainframe began transmitting Richard's distress call as well as the coordinates of his emergency.

Ben ensured his office door was locked and the Do Not Disturb sign unmasked. He opened the secret door to his secret elevator and hit the button marked with a down arrow. The car descended until it came to a stop at a floor below the basement, a level that most who worked for Grant Technologies didn't know existed, the Liberty Brigade's base of operations.

He quickly donned his red, white, and blue armor and red cape. He set the base's teleporter to the Skyway City district and stepped into the chamber.

He materialized in Skyway, overlooking the vista before him in the noonday sun.

---

Richard's fist went clear through the cog's metal chest, and the mechanical being dropped to the pavement. He whirled around and clobbered a Clockwork oscillating fan with an overhead blow, driving the hovering robot down to the pavement. As the Clockwork attempted to rise from its prone position, Richard pounded it with a haymaker, sending it flying away. As it landed about ten feet away, it shattered into innumerable metal pieces.

Meanwhile, standing at his shoulder, Lyta fired off several types of arrows—those with acid bulbs on the tips, those with explosive tips, those with netting, flaming tips, flash bang tips—all in an effort to keep the multitude of Clockwork from massing their attacks on her husband.

"I think we torqued off the Clockwork King when we rescued Lou and his family the other day," Richard remarked.

"Indeed," Lyta agreed. "This does smell of a planned ambush."

Richard already felt fatigue setting in as his arms continued to pound on the Clockwork minions. He dug deep into his reserves to tap into more energy, but even that, he feared, would not be enough.

The pavement under Richard's feet suddenly shuddered. A few seconds after, he caught a glimpse of a blue figure descending. As it landed about three hundred yards down, the pavement shuddered again. The blue figure rose until it reached the zenith of its arc, and it finally landed amidst the mass of Clockwork attacking the Straders from the south.

The newcomer, over a foot shorter than Richard's own six-foot-two frame, was covered from neck to feet in blue chitin. His bare head had flesh literally as white a paper, with white horns extending from his temples. He grasped a huge double-bladed battleaxe in his fists, and as he landed he became sheathed in a layer of ice.

Frost Axe—the mysterious being from a place that even he himself didn't know, brought to this world by accident when a group of college kids monkeyed around with a ritual they shouldn't have—had found a home with the Liberty Brigade about six months ago.

The chitinous hero waded into the mass of Clockwork, swinging his axe in wide arcs. Pieces of Clockwork flew everywhere.

"Heya, Frosty," Richard said as he pile-drove a cog into the pavement.

Frost Axe only grunted, his full attention on destroying the robotic horde.

Energy bolts lanced down from above, peppering the Clockwork attacking from the north side of the downed plane. Ben hovered overhead, firing his pulses in a nearly constant barrage.

Richard, however, was spent. He slumped against the fuselage of his plane, held up partially by Lyta as she simultaneously continued her rain of arrows. She had nearly depleted her supply, however, even with the stock she had available in the jet's storage compartment.

Kari arrived now, hovering at her husband's side. She aimed her fingertips toward Richard and directed the power of her amulet at him. Richard suddenly felt new energy rush into him.

He renewed his attacks, pounding and clobbering the Clockwork.

Their numbers seemed endless, however. Where had this horde come from?

"Hey, Ben, where's Derek?" Richard asked.

Ben sniped a Clockwork cannon knight. "In Washington. He and a bunch of other representatives from various supergroups are meeting with the Secretary of Homeland Security."

"What for?"

"Less talking, more fighting," Lyta admonished.

"Yes, dear."

Ben grunted as a Tesla cage enveloped him, and he dropped to the pavement among the mass of Clockwork. Unable to move inside the globe of electrical arcs, he was vulnerable. And neither Richard nor Frosty could defeat the foes fast enough to get to him.

Kari cried out in alarm, lowering her altitude, but even as she swept the Clockwork with her lightning bolts she was helpless to do anything for Ben.

Surrounded by Clockwork, with a multitude of attacks directed against him, Ben slumped prone and disappeared among the clicking and whirring Clockwork swarm.

"Ben!" she cried, unleashing a stream of electrical energy.

The Clockwork began focusing their attention on her now, and Richard and Frosty both stepped up their attacks to divert the enemies' attention away from the blue-and-yellow-clad heroine.

Richard watched in awed amazement as another figure winked into view after the brief flash of a teleportation field. Dave Grant teleported three of his robots—his two battle drones and a protector bot—onto the scene before unlimbering his pulse rifle.

Crap, Richard thought. Could this get any worse?

Dave and his two battle drones opened fire.

On the Clockwork. Pulse blasts and lasers swept through the mechanical foes, clearing Kari's path to Ben's side. She descended to the pavement and drew upon her magic, reviving her unconscious husband.

Ben clambered to his feet and took Kari by the arm. The couple leaped into flight and hovered overhead, Ben's energy blasts joining those of his brother's and the drones'.

The last of the Clockwork finally fell, and the heroes were on the brink of complete exhaustion.

Ben descended to the pavement and approached Dave. The two armored brothers stood face-to-face, neither speaking.

Dave touched the control panel on his forearm, and his trio of robots rocketed away. He cased his rifle and leaped into the air, soaring away. Ben would have followed, but his armor was still recharging its power cells.

"How did he know?" Richard asked, leaning against the fuselage of his plane.

"He's hacked into the Brigade's comms system," Ben said. "It's the only explanation."

"We'll have to update the firewalls then. Hey Frosty."

Frost Axe turned his strange eyes toward Richard. "Yes, Richard?"

"You can turn off the ice effect now. My wife's getting cold."

Frost Axe relaxed his aura, and the sheath of ice around him quickly vaporized. "My apologies."

"No worries. It just gives me an excuse to warm her up."

"I am not that cold," Lyta said, "but how will you warm me up?"

Richard slid his arms around her bikini-clad figure. "Like this."

"I see. On second thought, I believe I am cold."

---

After the meeting with the Secretary of Homeland Security, Derek departed from his fellow super-powered delegates and went to Capitol Hill, where he sought the offices of Representative Cheryl Hunt, a Republican from Rhode Island representing the district in which Paragon City was a part.

"Hi," Derek said to the aide manning the front desk. "Congresswoman Hunt is expecting me. Dr. Derek Nox."

The aide checked the computer, and she nodded. "Go right in, Dr. Nox."

Derek thanked her and entered the office. As he closed the door behind him, the congresswoman stood from behind her desk. She was attractive, in her late thirties, with fiery red hair.

What Derek sensed most keenly, however, was her Kheldian life force. Like Derek, Cheryl Hunt was a warshade.

The Nictus who had merged with Cheryl had done so out of malice. Kar'tor had sought Cheryl out when she was an ambitious Paragon City councilwoman, and had merged with her with the intention of infiltrating the human government. The Nictus's plans fell apart, however, when Cheryl's integrity and sheer force of personality grafted into Kar'tor, instead of vice versa, and the warshade was born. Unlike most warshades, Cheryl lived almost exclusively in her human form.

Derek crossed the room, and Cheryl stepped out from behind her desk to meet him halfway. The two warshades enfolded one another in a tender embrace, and their lips met.

"How did the meeting with the Secretary of Homeland Security go?" she asked.

"He asked us for our expert opinions on what it would take to keep Arachnos from breaking out the inmates in the Zigursky Federal Penitentiary. All those super powered villains running loose poses a national security hazard. Especially if they decide to ally themselves with any of the numerous terrorist outfits."

"So, is Sister Psyche as beautiful in person as she is on camera?"

Derek thought about the Freedom Phalanx's chosen delegate to the meeting with Homeland Security. "I'd be lying if I said no. I felt a little uncomfortable around her, though, knowing that she's a mind-reader."

"Let's not talk shop for the remainder of your visit."

"Agreed."

"Come with me. They're serving a marvelous buffet in the Capitol cafeteria."

---

Ben still ached from the fight with the Clockwork, and he leaned back in his chair. He didn't know what had exhausted him more, though—the battle with the Clockwork or the meeting with Rupert Chalmers that had just concluded in his office at Grant Technologies an hour ago.

He felt a little more relaxed at home, in his den, even though he was working. The computer monitor on the desktop before him showed the image of the schematic of modifications he and Richard had been working on for his powered armor.

Kari came into the den clad in one of his t-shirts, her usual sleepwear. She stood behind him and leaned down to slip her arms around him. He reached behind him and laid a loving hand on her soft, smooth thigh.

"Come on, you deserve a nap," she said.

"It's four o'clock in the afternoon."

"What are you doing there anyway?"

"I'm adding a new setting for my energy emitters, but I have to find a way to tweak the power expenditure so I don't deplete my power cells with one burst."

"What does it do?"

"It's a high-yield point-blank energy blast. It should help in close quarters fighting like what we experienced today."

"Well, come to bed. You'll think better after a power nap."

"Go on ahead. I'll be in shortly."

"I sleep better with you next to me, you know that."

A red flashing indicator on the monitor screen caught Ben's attention, and he minimized the schematic to bring up the alert window.

"Oh no," he murmured. "Another bank robbery by a super-powered thief. It's our old friend with the green thumb."

Kari disengaged herself from her embrace and headed out of the den. Ben closed down all the programs he had running and began the operating system's shutdown sequence. He left the den for the master bedroom, where Kari waited in the teleporter hidden behind a false wall at the back of the walk-in closet. Within seconds, they were in the Liberty Brigade headquarters.

They changed into their costumes and returned to the base's teleporter, where Ben set the destination for Atlas Park. They materialized at the base of a statue near City Hall.


	4. Chapter 4

**IV**

The Eco-Activist strode the floor of the bank, weaving around the people—employee and patron alike—ensnared by his vines. Dr. Robotico would probably be upset that he'd acted on his own without his approval. Or that he'd found the technological defilement on his person that Robotico used to track him, and had removed it.

Well, screw the Doc, the Eco-Activist thought. Robotico wasn't his boss, and the Eco-Activist certainly didn't owe him any allegiance. If there was anyone who deserved any kind of appreciation, it was Lord Recluse for busting him out of the Zig in the first place. He didn't know why he'd allied himself with Robotico except for the promise of fighting one of Corporate America's biggest companies.

Robotico, despite the hard armor he wore, was too soft. No one affiliated in any way to Corporate America deserved mercy.

"You are all guilty," the Eco-Activist lectured to his hostages. "Guilty of crimes against the Earth. The money handled by this bank is used by corporations to fund the ruination of the planet's natural order. All of you in here—each and every one of you—uses the money you store here to purchase merchandise manufactured by those same corporations. You are all guilty of crimes against the Earth."

"You hypocrite," an older man snapped. "That spandex outfit you're wearing is probably made of artificial fibers. Polymers. Plastics, which are an oil-based product."

The Eco-Activist leveled his hard gaze on the speaker. "My clothes are formed of natural, living plant matter. We have a symbiotic relationship." He held up a fist, and a large spike of plant matter extended from his glove. "Would you like to test the symbiosis?"

The man shook his head.

The Eco-Activist retracted his spike. "Fine. Then keep quiet."

He strolled among the people, and he stopped before an attractive woman wearing a tank top whose arms were pinned at her side. He pulled at the neckline of her top for a quick peak down, then continued his stroll. He walked around the lobby, maintaining his air of menacing authority.

"All right, can someone tell me where the vault is?" he asked.

No one spoke. He extended the spike from his glove and placed the point at the throat of a woman standing next to her young son.

"Anyone?" he demanded.

A middle-aged man jerked his head toward the opening of a hallway that led toward the back of the bank. "Down that way."

The Eco-Activist retracted his spike. "Thank you."

He headed down the hallway and found the vault. He examined the vault door for a moment, then extended spikes from both gloves. He coalesced the cellular structure of the spikes to diamond hardness and set to work on pounding the door.

---

When the call had come over the police scanner that a super-powered criminal with the ability to control plants had taken hostages in a bank in Atlas Park, Dave knew exactly where the Eco-Activist had disappeared to after removing the tracking beacon. He hadn't been surprised by the green villain's actions. In fact, he had fully expected the Eco-Activist to eventually act on his own. The plant master had his own agenda, as did Dave.

The Eco-Activist was predictable, however. Like any hippy, as much as he preached against the trappings of capitalist society, he still needed money. And a bank not only held lots of cash, but it was—in the Activist's mind—a symbol of Corporate America's greed. So Dave waited for the Eco-Activist to do exactly what was expected.

Dave also knew that Ben and his Liberty Brigade would be drawn to the Eco-Activist's activities due to the fact that Dave and the Activist were accomplices in the destruction of the Crey mutagens in that armored truck.

Ben had succeeded in creating a firewall to block Dave's hacking of the Brigade headquarters mainframe and, by extension, his tapping into their comms network. It wouldn't take long for Dave to breach that firewall, but in the meantime he used police scanners to learn the information he needed. And when the on-scene commander at the robbery reported the arrival of the American Crusader and Miss Michigan, Dave knew that the Liberty Brigade's attention was on the Eco-Activist.

Dave stood on a rooftop in the Galaxy City district overlooking the nondescript building below the Chris Jenkins, Attorney at Law billboard. Unbeknownst to most citizens of Paragon City, Crey Biotech operated a lab there. The lab where Dave's project team worked. Where Dave had maintained the high-speed AI computer necessary for the work conducted therein.

It was here where Dave's life changed forever.

He set his robots to work. Encapsulated in Sonny's force field bubbles, Hal and Joshua opened fire on the building's main doors. Breaching the security doors, which were disguised as typical shopfront doors, the drones entered.

Dave leaped into the air and descended to the sidewalk before the facade. He strolled through the breach and encountered a pair of Crey's costumed super-powered clones, the Paragon Protectors, lying slumped to the floor at the drones' feet.

He could almost laugh at the name. Protectors? Ha! They were Crey's private army of super thugs. Perversions of life.

He ordered his battle drones to take the lead, and they headed down the hallway toward Dave's old lab. He unlimbered his rifle and ensured it was set to stun.

A woman in a lab coat rounded a corner, and she shrieked in surprise when she saw the intruder in the red and blue armor. Dave fired a stun pulse into her, and she slumped to the floor.

He found his old lab and entered his pass code into the keypad beside the security door. Access was denied, indicating the project head had indeed changed the code. It was worth a try.

His drones opened fire on the metal door, blasting it open.

Three technicians in lab coats coughed as smoke filled the room, and before they could recover Dave stunned them with pulses from his rifle.

Crey was so adamant about maintaining the compartmentalization of the overall project that this lab's mainframe would be isolated from the other parts of the project. It was also isolated from Crey's central mainframe. There would be no sharing of data until all parts of the project had completed their portions.

Dave unspooled a connector cable from the forearm of his armor and connected it to the lab's main terminal. He flipped open the protective cover of his keypad and initiated his hacking program. Once connected to the lab's memory core, he downloaded a virus that would wipe all stored data in the mainframe.

He disconnected and left the chamber. He encountered a pair of Paragon protectors. Resetting his rifle to kill, he fired a pulse that transfixed the clone on the right, piercing its heart.

The other clone discharged an electrical blast from its fists, and Dave's drones interposed themselves to take the arcs with their shielded bodies.

Dave fired, and his pulse went clear through the clone's head. It dropped to the floor beside its slain partner.

Perversions, Dave thought as he stepped over the fallen clones. He arrived at the data backup storage room, and without even attempting to enter his pass code into the keypad he ordered Hal and Joshua to blow the door down. He stepped past the wreckage and stopped just inside the room.

He and his drones opened fire, peppering the racks of backup copies with energy bursts.

Even if Crey had backups of this lab's work stored in another location, it would take some time to properly and stealthily set up another lab. Crey's project to create an all-powerful super being, incorporating all the known "archetypes" into one, had been disrupted for the time being.

He had one thing to do to ensure the complete destruction of this lab. He and his drones swept the lab complex, stunning the human occupants and destroying the Paragon Protector clones. They removed the unconscious humans from the building, and Dave set explosives around the load-bearing beams.

With a tap of a key on his forearm keypad, he detonated the explosives. The building collapsed in upon itself, throwing up clouds of dust and debris. He'd expertly set the demolitions, however, and none of the surrounding structures were harmed. Even the Chris Jenkins billboard remained intact.

---

Meanwhile, in Atlas Park, Ben and Kari touched down on the sidewalk near the perimeter set up outside the bank by the Paragon City Police Department. The heroes found the on-scene commander hunkered by a patrol car.

"Finally, some masks show up," the commander said. "We have a super-powered perp inside with several hostages."

"The Eco-Activist," Ben remarked.

"You know who he is?"

"Only that he has dominion over plants, and he was broken out of the Zig not too long ago." Ben looked into the dark eyes behind Kari's blue mask. "I'm going to do a little recon. Stay here with the police."

"Be careful," she said, carefully maintaining a professional air to her voice.

Ben leaped into the air and moved to hover above the bank. Linking with the Liberty Brigade's mainframe, he accessed the city zoning records and found the floor plans to the bank, displaying them on the miniature computer monitor attached to the forearm of his armor. Memorizing the bank's key locations, he flipped down the mini-computer's protective cover. He set his helmet's goggles to infrared and scanned inside. Most of the heat signatures inside were in the lobby. A single individual was at the vault door.

That had to be the Eco-Activist. Ben activated his communicator.

"I found the target," he said. "He's at the vault. The hostages are unattended in the main lobby."

"I'll take care of them," Kari's voice responded over the comms.

Ben somersaulted backward into a dive, and he flipped over to touch the ground feet first at one of the emergency fire exits. Like most fire exit doors, this one didn't have an exterior handle. He manipulated the electrical field of his armor to create electromagnets on the palms of his gauntlets, and he latched them onto the surface of the door to pull it open.

Once inside, he quietly moved toward the bank's main electrical distribution panel. With a sweep of his gauntleted palm, he tripped all the lighting breakers, bathing the interior of the bank in darkness.

He set his helmet goggles to night vision and headed for the vault.

He found the Eco-Activist at the vault, a spike extending from each hand, gazing upward as if he was trying to understand why the lights had gone out.

Ben opened fire with his emitters, disgorging a torrent of energy that sent the Eco-Activist flying backward. The villain slammed hard into the opposite wall.

"Well, well, well," the villain said, chuckling. "If it isn't the American Crusader, the epitome of America's rejection of the natural order, encased in that technological monstrosity bearing the colors of that despicable flag."

The Eco-Activist scrambled to his feet, but another burst from Ben's energy emitters put him back down. The green-clad villain hurled a fan of thorny missiles in Ben's direction. Ben twisted his body to evade, but diamond hard thorns still peppered him. Some deflected off his armor, but two or three pierced the hard metal and embedded themselves in Ben's flesh.

Vines punched through the cement floor and snaked up around Ben's arms and legs.

The Eco-Activist extended spikes from his gloves and punched a hole through the bank's masonry walls. Ben pulled himself free of the ensnaring vines and moved to follow, but just as he arrived at the hole created by the villain a network of vines wove themselves into a barrier to plug the opening. Ben fired his energy pulses at the vines, cutting them away, but by the time he emerged outside into the sunlight he saw no sign of the Eco-Activist.

He returned into the bank and strode to the lobby, where Kari was releasing the last of the hostages.

"He got away," Ben said simply.

Her task done, Kari moved to stand before her husband. She gasped when she saw the thorns jutting from where they'd pierced his armor. She pulled the thorns free and poured her healing power into him.

"At least the hostages are safe," he said. He activated his communicator, relaying it through the Brigade HQ's main uplink. "American Crusader to Shadow Vision."

"Vision here," Derek said a moment later.

"Are you still in DC?"

"I am, but I'll be returning to Paragon shortly."

"When you get back, could you research what is known about one Woody Lawless, a.k.a. the Eco-Activist?"

"Sure thing."

Ben deactivated his communicator. "In the meantime, I'm going to sweep the area from the air, see if I can discern where the Activist went off to."

"Not without me," Kari said.

---

The Eco-Activist arced high into the air, somersaulted at his apex, and on his descent he extended an arm. A vine shot out of his glove and latched onto the overhanging parapet of a building across the street. On the upward leg of his swing, he retracted the vine and extended his other arm. He loosed another vine, latching it onto yet another building.

He swung like this, enjoying the breeze against his face, until he was carried over the wall surrounding the perimeter of Perez Park. Arcing over the stone wall, the expanse of the park spread before him. He fired a vine at the green canopy of the thick forest.

He finally settled onto the thick bough of a massive tree, and he hunkered down to place his palms lovingly against the bark. Ever since his incarceration, even through his alliance with Dr. Robotico, he had been surrounded by steel and concrete. Finally he felt the comfort of vegetation around him. He sat at the base of the bough and leaned back against the trunk. At his command, several branches wrapped him in their embrace to keep him anchored.

He leaned his head back and slept soundly.

---

The members of the Liberty Brigade sat around the table in the conference room, all relaxing in their street clothes. Derek stood at the rostrum at the head of the room, in front of the flat screen that took up one wall. A photo of the Eco-Activist from the files of the Zig was shown on the screen.

"The Eco-Activist," Derek explained. "Born Woodrow Kismet Lawless in a commune to a pair of 1960s-era flower children. His parents have lengthy police records for numerous acts of vandalism, from trashing draft board centers to spiking the tires of logging trucks."

"What role models," Ben remarked.

"Is not dissension a right in this country?" Lyta asked. "I have taken the citizenship exam, and I remember the First Amendment's guarantee to seek redress."

"As long as it doesn't result in damage to private or public property. Some of the more radical elements of our society tend to forget that."

"So he was born to a couple of hippies," Richard said. "How did this twerp get his powers?"

"Back in 1995 he decided to hamper logging operations in the Northwest by residing in the branches of an old-growth tree," Derek explained. "He bought into the propaganda that all logging companies indiscriminately cut down old-growth trees. What he didn't realize was that the camp he targeted for disruption was run by a logging company that was actually conscientious about not cutting down old growth trees, so they harvested in another direction than where Woody Lawless had taken residence. He stayed up there for weeks without seeing one lumberjack."

"Poor guy," Richard said unsympathetically.

"He gained his powers by exposure to a magic ritual while up in that tree," Derek continued. "Apparently, another radical environmentalist group with self-described ties to the Circle of Thorns, but we can't verify the veracity of that, decided to disrupt the logging operations in their own way. By animating the trees near the logging camp."

"They went for the irony angle," Ben said. "Trees attacking the lumberjacks."

"Precisely. As Lawless lay sleeping up in his tree, the newcomers performed their ritual below him. Either they performed the wrong ritual, or they botched it, because instead of animating the trees they infused Lawless with the spirit of the plant kingdom, thus enabling him to animate plants at will."

"I know all too well the repercussions of botched magic rituals," Frost Axe said. "Magic is not something to be practiced by those who know little about it."

"It appears that Dave and the Eco-Activist have parted ways," Derek said. "While the Activist was robbing that bank, a building in the Galaxy City sector was imploded by a demolitions expert. It housed the lab where Dave used to work."

Ben jerked in his chair, and Kari laid a palm on his hand.

"When Paragon City first responders arrived on the scene," the warshade said, "there were already a team of Paragon Protectors present, ostensibly responding to the emergency. None of the lab workers were harmed, and the Paragon Protectors took them to private medical facilities for observation. City investigators found little of interest in the rubble."

"Probably because the Protectors already took everything Crey wanted them to take, including the witnesses," Ben said.

"That probably won't be the last Crey facility Dave goes after," Richard said.

"I hate to say it, but our first priority is the Eco-Activist. According to the witnesses in the bank, he threatened a couple of hostages with lethal harm. He's a threat to human life, and that takes precedence over property damage."


	5. Chapter 5

**V**

The Eco-Activist walked into the apartment building across from the PTA monorail station in King's Row. He climbed to the fourth floor and found Room 4G. Without knocking, he walked into the apartment.

Two dozen college-age men and women sat in a half-circle on the shag carpeted floor, their attention enraptured by the sixty- or so-year-old bespectacled man standing with a placard in his hand. He was pointing to a pie chart on the placard when he looked up at the intrusion.

The Eco-Activist scanned the apartment, noted the various posters advertising several environmentalist and animal rights activist groups. The decor and furnishings of the apartment just screamed 1960s counterculture.

All in the room had their eyes on the Eco-Activist as the costumed intruder strode toward the old man. He grabbed the placard and swept his gaze across the graph that charted the losses to the rain forest. He tore the placard in two and tossed the halves aside. He turned to face the half-circle of youths.

"Do you want to sit here being lectured with cheap props?" the Eco-Activist asked. "Do you want to stand around in the rain outside a polluter's fence impotently waving homemade signs? Or do you want to join me and take action? I can stop the evil corporations from destroying nature, kids. I have the power to take decisive action." He clenched a fist. "Nature will take this planet back!"

The youths applauded.

"What do you plan to do?" the old man asked.

The Eco-Activist looked around the room, his eyes focusing on a potted plant in the corner. The plant grew rapidly, stretching out to snatch the glasses off the old hippy's face. It snaked around the old fossil and held his arms fast.

"This is but a small taste of what I can do," the Eco-Activist said. "Imagine Mother Nature's plants attacking those who would attack them. Imagine all the vegetation in Paragon City dismembering this atrocity of steel and concrete and returning this land to its original pristine environment."

"You alone can do this?"

"The only ones who can stand in my way are the super-powered puppets of Paragon's corporations that 'protect' this city."

"There are enough of those around."

"Get word to all who think like we do. If we can incite the various gangs in the city to attack one another at the same time, creating gang wars in the streets, the super-powered types will be tied up breaking up those wars. And, before they know it, my plants will have this city in its grip. I only need to have the super-powered types distracted."

The old hippy smiled. "It will be done, man."

"Excellent."

"Who are you, anyway?"

"That's the Eco-Activist," said one of the young men. "I heard he fought the American Crusader to a stand-still in a bank. He pounded that flag-waving fanatic into submission. Nature versus technology, and nature won. It was glorious."

The Eco-Activist smiled. He was gaining a reputation among his ideological peers. This would make it much easier to gain a following to accomplish his goal.

"Wait for my word before we incite the gang wars," he said. "We need this to occur in one riotous swath of destruction."

"We will wait for you, Defender of Nature," the old man said.

"First, I need you to make a call for me."

"Name it."

The Eco-Activist explained his immediate plan to those in the room, and what he expected of them. Once he made clear what he wanted, he moved to the window and opened it. He crawled out onto the fire escape platform and stretched out a hand. A vine lanced out of his glove and latched onto the building across the street. He leaped out and swung into the night.

He had another address three blocks down. There lived another leader among the various environmentalist movements based in Paragon City.

At the height of the tail of his swing, he retracted his vine into his glove and extended another from his other hand.

---

Richard dodged the crossbow bolt and deflected another aside with a sweep of his forearm. Lyta launched an arrow over his shoulder, striking the roughhewn ceiling of the cave tunnel above the crossbow-wielding Circle of Thorns guardian. The flash bang erupted with a dazzle of light, blinding the four guardians who barred their only path out of the cave system.

Crossbow bolts clattered off the walls as the guardians unleashed their shots. Richard and Frost Axe charged.

Richard pounded a guardian with his gloved fist, his dark blue cape billowing behind him. The guardian slumped to the cave floor. Frost Axe smacked his opponent with the flat of his axe blade and bashed the guardian with the haft of his weapon. The Circle of Thorns minion toppled over, unconscious.

Lyta netted the third guardian with a net arrow, immobilizing the foe as Richard and Frost Axe double-teamed the fourth guardian. Even before that foe slumped to the ground, the two heroes attacked the netted guardian.

The group paused as Frost Axe attached locator beacons to the fallen foes.

"We're clear," Richard said.

Lyta grabbed the biceps of Jasmine, the mystic who had moments before been a captive of the Circle of Thorns coven who had inhabited this cave system under Perez Park, and guided the woman alongside her as the two men led the way.

The group of heroes and their charge moved quickly through the twisting caves.

"It is not far now, friends," Frosty said. "I can smell the fresh park air already."

"All I can smell is musty cave," Richard said.

They rounded a bend and came to a stop as a pair of cackling mages, surrounded by crossbow-wielding guardians, waited for the heroes.

"Meddling heroes," the lead mage said. He made a sweeping gesture. "Get the masks!"

A volley of crossbow bolts lanced out, and Richard stepped forward. He gripped his cape in both hands and spread it outward. Made of the same material as his suit, the cape deflected the missiles away from his friends.

Angered by their foiled shots, the guardians all aimed at Richard. The mages began weaving their spells.

Frost Axe leaped over Richard and landed in front of the mage casting a mind control spell. The chitinous hero's axe came around in a lateral swing, and the haft slammed into the mage's side. The villain was thrown backward by the blow.

Richard charged and battered the other mage with his shoulder. Meanwhile, Lyta worked to hinder the guardians with flash bang and netting arrows.

The psychic mage regained his feet and fired off a spell. Frost Axe dropped his axe and grabbed the sides of his head.

Richard advanced toward Frost Axe to help his friend, but the second mage launched a spell of his own. And energy beam lanced from his palm and struck Richard in the side. The blue-clad hero flinched as he actually felt the bolt through his suit and his personal force shield.

He whirled around and launched himself at the energy mage. He drove his fist into the mage's torso, sending the villain sprawling back. Before the mage could regain his feet, the caped hero pounded the villain.

Frost Axe, meanwhile, shook off the mage's mind control spell and took up his fallen weapon. He struck the roughhewn floor of the cave at the mage's feet with enough force to create a shockwave that hurled the villain off his feet. Frosty stepped forward and gripped the mage's robe in his free hand. He threw the mage against the wall of the cave. The mage slumped to the floor and lay still.

Richard pelted the energy mage with blows from his fists. His coup de grace was an overhanded blow with both fists, and the mage slumped unconscious to the floor.

He turned toward the guardians, but they were immobilized in Lyta's nets. He took a handful of locator beacons from his belt and attached them to the vanquished foes. He called the Paragon Police Department on his communicator, and the villains dematerialized as they were teleported into the Paragon City lock-up.

The team emerged from the caves into the morning sun that shone over Perez Park.

"I thank you for releasing me from their clutches," Jasmine said.

"It was nothing," Richard said.

"I have a warning for you, friends. The winds of fortune favor you, but you must look out for the green tide of destruction. Paragon City, even now, is in impending peril."

"It's always in impending peril."

"This peril is more than usual for Paragon City, Blue Wolf. The spider's gift of freedom will spell doom for the city."

"Why do you mystics always speak in obscure language?"

"The seers' sight is not always clear, Blue Wolf," Lyta said. "I have heard the warnings of the Oracle at Delphi in my old life, and seers have not changed over the millennia."

"The winds of fortune further warn me of dangers to those who are not among you. The Earth itself arises."

"And what the hell does that mean?" Richard asked.

"That is all I can discern from the winds of fortune, Blue Wolf."

"Let's go back to headquarters. Maybe Shadow Vision can make heads or tails of Jasmine's warnings."

"Heed my words, heroes," the mystic said. "And thank you for your rescue."

Jasmine fled into the trees. Once the heroes were alone, Lyta slipped her hand into Richard's grasp.

"I hate maintaining a professional persona toward you while in our hero identities," she said, kissing her husband's cheek.

"So do I, baby. Let's go."

The trio headed toward Richard's parked jet.

---

Ben and his two companions, Kari and Derek, descended over the southern shore of Talos Island and crossed over the water. They were responding to reports from civilian boaters that an island south of Talos was overrun with walking vegetation. Fearing that the Eco-Activist was unleashing his power, the three heroes went into action.

They landed on the shore of the island of the reports, and Ben scanned the area. They strode further inland. They noted nothing yet of interest

A copse of trees stood nearby, one of the few clumps of visible vegetation on the otherwise uninhabited island.

They stopped when they saw movement among the copse of trees.

Propelled on long, lanky legs, a creature that looked to be comprised of vegetation shambled out of the trees. A moment later, a second such creature moved out.

"I fear this is not the Eco-Activist," Derek said. "Those are the Hamidon's creatures."

"The Devoured Earth," Ben said.

"Could the Activist control the vegetable members of the Devoured Earth?" Kari asked.

"The Devoured Earth hates all humans," Derek said. "If the Eco-Activist got anywhere close enough to use his plant control powers, they would attack him on sight."

"This island seems to keep them isolated from the city's population," Ben said. "We'll contact the Coast Guard to ensure they keep civilians away from this island. We'll go back to headquarters and search for more leads that may direct us to the Eco-Activist."

The trio prepared to take flight, but the ground trembled under their feet. Earthen forms rose out of the sandy beach and coalesced into a bipedal form.

Some of the Devoured Earth's earthen members were joining their vegetable brothers.

Ben leaped into the air, but the earthen creature hurled a boulder at him that knocked him out of the sky. Kari's scream of horror filled the air as the armored hero slammed into the sand and lay still.


	6. Chapter 6

Author's Note: It's not political. The main hero of the story is a business owner and former Marine with traditional American values who uses technology with a patriotic motif for his crime fighting endeavors. So I figured his arch-nemesis should be his polar opposite—nature-themed powers and a counterculture motif. _City of Villains _provided the perfect model with the plant dominator archetype. Besides, I don't hear complaints about Hollywood writers politicizing their movies when they consistently depict conservative types like me as ignorant, bigoted hayseeds. As far as whether or not you're supposed to like Dave, that's entirely up to the reader.

**VI**

If Dave knew his former employers—and he did—Crey would already have increased the security around the other facilities attached to Project Demigod. To compensate, he needed additional firepower. Merely adding more battle drones may not be sufficient, and may tax his command and control. He had to build a more powerful bot.

"I'm receiving traffic over the Liberty Brigade's communications network, Dr. Grant," Sarah said.

Dave paused in his work. "Patch it down to my workstation please."

The speakers near Dave's workbench cut in mid-broadcast. "—we've been drawn into an ambush by Devoured Earth. Need backup from any available Brigaders."

The transmission ended, and Dave paused in his work. He set his soldering iron aside and swivelled around on his stool.

"That sounded like Shadow Vision's voice," he said. "Sarah, can you triangulate the source of that broadcast?"

"It's coming from an area near Talos Island."

"Compile for me the coordinates of all the known Devoured Earth sightings near Talos Island."

"If you intend to intercede, Dr. Grant, need I remind you that Crey Biotech has you on its most wanted list."

"I'm not worried about Crey's clones."

"Crey Biotech is a respected corporation with many philanthropic causes."

"Outwardly. Crey employs a lot of decent, honorable employees and executives. But I know the truth of its dark central underbelly."

"You should know, Crey's Vice President of North American Operations has convinced the Paragon Police Department that you are a threat to the city. You may have to deal with the police as well as Paragon's heroes."

"Prepare my armor, Sarah."

---

Kari leaped into the air, her gaze focused on where her husband had landed. Ben levered himself to his feet, and he stumbled dazedly as he tried to retire from the vine-like Devoured Earth. Kari swooped in and directed her healing magic at Ben.

Just in time, too, for a D.E. vine unleashed a volley of thorns at the armored hero. The missiles peppered Ben, most glancing off his blue armor. Kari gasped, however, when she saw that a few had embedded themselves in his back. She poured more healing power into him, and his body seemed to eject the thorns as his wounds closed themselves.

Ben's full awareness finally returned, but the D.E. vines' attention was now on Kari. She increased her altitude, only to feel the sharp points of hard thorns pierce her chest and upper arms. She concentrated on her healing aura, which pushed out the thorns and closed her wounds.

Ben, meanwhile, opened fire on the walking vegetation, directing a cone of energy that simultaneously slammed into all three vine creatures, driving them back.

Kari twisted around and settled her gaze on Derek, who had transformed into a bulky, clawed creature that many around Paragon City had dubbed the Kheldians' "lobster" form. Derek waded into the Devoured Earth stone creatures, bashing away. She directed healing energy into the warshade to keep him in fighting trim.

She whirled around, toward her husband once again. Ben, surrounded by walking vines, had gone airborne to avoid the creatures' launched thorns and swinging appendages. His energy beams flashed almost continuously.

A boulder came from somewhere behind Kari, soaring through the air. She saw it out of the corner of her eye, and she changed altitude to avoid it, but the boulder struck her shoulder. She felt bone crack and skin peel away even as she spun out of control. She landed hard on the sandy beach.

She lifted herself to her feet and cast her healing aura. The pain in her shoulder quickly vanished.

Derek lay on his back, trying to stand, when a D.E. rock creature clobbered him with an overhand blow. Kari threw a healing spell at him, and Derek started to rise. The rock creature pounded him again, even as Kari attempted to pour more healing power into him, but she was too late. Derek lay still, unconscious.

She unleashed her offensive powers, firing arcs of electrical energy into the closest rock monster. Chips of stone eroded from the beast's stony hide, but her target was otherwise unfazed.

Energy bolts lanced across the beach, raking one of the stone creatures. Ben had defeated the three vine creatures and had turned his attention to the D.E. rock monsters.

A large stone arced overhead and came down, caroming off Ben's armor. Ben staggered backward, and more stones rained down toward him. He danced around, evading the falling stones.

Kari slipped closer and cast a reviving spell on Derek. The warshade awoke and immediately turned his wrath on the trio's foes.

"All on one!" Derek cried.

While the warshade slammed his powerful pincers into one of the stone creatures, Ben and Kari unleashed their respective blasts. Energy bolts and electrical arcs etched into the stony hide.

The creature finally crumbled to pieces.

From the rubble, several small rock creatures came to life. Ben fired his cone of energy, eliminating them.

A D.E. drove its appendage into Derek's back where his clavicle would be if he was in his human form. He slumped to his knees, but before the enemy could deliver the coup de grace Ben poured a torrent of energy into the rock creature.

Another creature struck Derek even as Kari unleashed her healing power. It was insufficient, however, for the creature's blow was powerful enough to knock Derek senseless. The warshade slumped to the sand.

Ben, meanwhile, was suddenly surrounded by three earthen creatures. He delivered his new point blank weapon, shattering one of the creatures, but the other two double-teamed him. Ben lay unmoving in the sand, and the remaining rock monsters turned their attention to Kari.

And she was nearing exhaustion.

---

Richard dived out of the clouds and banked his jet hard right. Looking through the canopy, he could see the Devoured Earth rock creatures converging on Kari. Ben and Derek lay still in the sand as the foes focused on the last hero standing.

"Looks like we came none too soon," Richard said.

"I'm in," Frost Axe said.

No sooner had those words come through the communicator than Frost Axe descended on the downward leg of his leap from the shore of Talos Island. As soon as his feet touched the sand of the Devoured Earth-controlled island he waded into the group of earthen creatures. He swung his axe in a wide lateral arc as he did a three-sixty spin, hurling the D.E.s away from him.

"Autopilot on," Richard said, poking the switch on his instrument panel.

As the jet passed over the battle at a near hover, Richard opened the cockpit canopy. He and Hyppolyta leaped out and landed on the sand. The plane's autopilot directed the craft toward the nearest open ground to land.

Lyta placed an arrow into the center of a cluster of rock minions, and the arrowhead's proximity fuse detonated a low-yield explosive to spread fast-acting glue over the enemy. The creatures' movements became slowed as they fought the powerful adhesive. Lyta loaded another arrow and launched at the same group. The explosive packed on that arrowhead was more potent, and with a sharp bang pure explosive energy pummeled the rock monsters with kinetic force and hot flame.

A solitary rock creature had closed on Kari, and Richard could see that she was near the end of her endurance. Her movements were slow and unsteady, and her electrical arcs came in sporadic bursts.

Richard slammed his shoulder into the beast, deflecting its path away from Kari. He faced the foe and pummeled it with a combination of punches.

The creature responded with a backhanded blow, knocking Richard flat onto his back. Richard somersaulted back onto his feet and resumed pummeling the creature.

As Richard kept the earthen beast off her, Kari caught her breath. With her second wind, she moved to Ben's side to revive him via her magic. As soon as the armored hero was back on his feet, he fired off volleys of energy blasts.

"There are too many of them," Richard said, slamming his fist down with a powerful hammer blow. "Frosty and I will keep 'em occupied while the rest of you withdraw."

Lyta launched an explosive arrow that took off part of a rock creature's arm. "I won't leave your side, love."

"She's right," Ben said, vaporizing a rock creature's head with a powerful blast of energy. "You and Frosty won't hold out long against these things."

"I think I should be the judge of what I can and cannot handle," Frost Axe exclaimed as his magical axe clove through a stone creature's shoulder.

Volleys of energy pulses and laser fire suddenly erupted, showering one of the D.E.s with destructive energy.

The heroes looked on in surprise as Dave and his battle drones discharged their high-energy beams into the group of Devoured Earth.

_Where had he come from? _Richard wondered.

The battle drones fanned out on either side of their master, catching one of the Devoured Earth in a crossfire. Dave joined the attack with his pulse rifle, and the stone creature crumbled to ruin. Even as smaller creatures began to animate from the strewn rubble, the drones pulverized them with accurate strafing.

A Devoured Earth clubbed one of the drones, but the robot appeared to be protected by a bubble of force field energy. The drone counterattacked with a hammer attached to one of its arms. The rock creature reached high overhead and drove both arms down on top of the drone, successfully punching through the force field bubble. With a flash of sparks and swirling electrical arcs, the drone stumbled.

"Joshua!" Dave cried, opening fire with a volley from his rifle.

Ben soared overhead and delivered a series of energy bolts into the stone creature from above. The Devoured Earth collapsed before it could smash the damaged drone into wreckage.

The drone seemed to recover as backup systems spun into operation, and it rotated to rake a Devoured Earth with its dual laser blasters.

A rock creature swung a wide arc, striking Dave high in his armored chest with its massive arm. His rifle skittered out of his grasp as he landed hard on his back. As Dave pushed himself to his feet, the Devoured Earth raised its arms for an overhead blow.

The drones caught the stone creature in a crossfire. Ben and Derek—now in his gold-clad human form—strafed the foe with their own energy blasts. Shattered stone rained over Dave. Ben and Derek didn't relent in their fire, pulverizing the rubble before they could fully animate.

Kari moved in to heal Dave as he recovered his rifle.

The quartet—Ben, Kari, Derek, and Dave—found themselves surrounded by a number of Devoured Earth. They and Dave's drones formed a box formation, raking through the foes with their ranged attacks.

Down the beach from his compatriots, Richard grabbed hold of a Devoured Earth and, with his cybernetically-enhanced strength, hurled it at Frost Axe. Frosty swung his axe like a baseball bat and struck it with the side of his axe blade. The creature soared high.

"And it is outta here!" Richard cried in imitation of a baseball color commentator.

Lyta nocked an arrow and fired it at the soaring creature, striking it at the apex of its flight. Her explosive arrow detonated, pulverizing its torso. Its head, arms, and legs tumbled earthward.

"Nice shooting, baby," Richard said.

"Thank you, my darling," Lyta replied.

The Amazon spun around and fired off two arrows in succession. The first arrow netted a closing stone creature. It quickly broke through the netting, but Lyta's second arrow struck and splashed acid across the stone hide. Vapors rose from the hissing of the acid corroding the stone, and Richard attacked with a powerful punch that pulverized a hole through its torso. Frost Axe swung his axe at the creature's legs, severing them at where the knees would be. The D.E. monster fell backward, its arms flailing.

Richard leaped onto it and slammed both fists into its chest in an overhead blow. The monster crumbled. He picked up two of the animating pieces of rubble and chucked them at the Devoured Earth surrounding Ben, Kari, Derek, and Dave. As he'd intended, his attacks forced the attention of two creatures toward him.

As the pair of stone creatures shambled toward the three heroes, Richard, Lyta, and Frost Axe made short work of them.

Richard picked up two more of the animated rubble, and Frost Axe picked up the last. The two men hurled the tiny creatures at their larger cousins. The angry leviathans turned away from the surrounded heroes and moved toward Richard and his companions.

Lyta destroyed one with an explosive arrow, and Richard and Frost Axe double-teamed its partner.

The rest of the stone creatures fell one-by-one as the four in the middle of the ring of Devoured Earth combined their attacks on each one in succession. Whatever small creatures animated from the rubble were easily dealt with.

The combatants all paused to rest. Dave, his power cells apparently close to depletion, did not attempt to either fly or teleport away. Instead, he slumped to the sand beside his brother.

"This is the second time I had to bail you out," he said.

"It didn't take you long to crack our new firewall," Ben said.

"Bro, compared to my technical skills you're an amateur."

"That firewall was mine," Richard said.

"And the two of you together couldn't create better protection for your central computer?"

"We don't have the advantage of your AI," Ben said.

"What AI?" Dave asked innocently.

"Come on, Dave, I know about Sarah. She's your crowning achievement."

Dave made a sweeping gesture. "So, what happened here? I thought you were hunting the Eco-Activist, not the Devoured Earth cabal."

"We received reports that the Activist was here," Kari said.

"Obviously a false tip to send us into a den of Devoured Earth," Ben said.

"Is there anything you can tell us about your partner in crime, Dave?" Richard asked.

"I know little about him," Dave said, "except that he's a committed eco-terrorist."

"You two looked rather chummy in that armored car heist."

"It wasn't a heist. I prevented some of Crey's mutagens from being misused."

"And what about outside Paragon University?"

"He was an ally, and Ben should know about the concept of not leaving an ally behind." Dave shrugged. "The Eco-Activist was a means to an end."

"Revenge against Crey Biotech," Ben said.

"Yes."

"And when the Eco-Activist decided he wanted to attack more than just Crey, you distanced yourself from him."

"I wrung as much use out of him as I could even as we severed any last association. But now I realize how off the beam he really is. He's more of an immediate danger to the people of Paragon than even Crey's machinations. He may have to be returned to the Zig sooner rather than later."

"Are you offering to help us, Dave?"

"Only until the Eco-Activist is back behind bars."

"Legally, you're still a convicted felon."

"Ben, I was framed."

"For the embezzling. That attack on the armored car was your decision. Not to mention aiding and abetting the escape of the Eco-Activist."

"I don't apologize for that armored car operation. The people of Paragon are better off without those mutagens, and whatever Crey was going to engineer with that poison. I should have let you put the Eco-Activist behind bars when you had him at Paragon University, and the only way to rectify that mistake is to help you recapture him."

"The Liberty Brigade has an official charter with Freedom Corps and the Paragon City Council. I can't risk that by associating with a known felon."

"Even if he's your brother attempting to help you apprehend an even more dangerous criminal?"

Kari laid a hand on her husband's armored shoulder. "Honey, we have been trying to clear Dave since he was incarcerated."

"That was before he committed a real crime," Ben said. "Now it's our duty to apprehend him."

"Fine," Dave snapped. "If you don't want my help—"

"Wait," Kari said. "Ben, Dave, settle down."

Ben bowed his helmeted head, and Dave's own faceless helmet dipped downward.

The team's communicators chirped.

"It's an incoming call forwarded from our tip hotline number," Kari said.

The team listened in as Ben activated his two-way.

"You've reached the Liberty Brigade tip hotline," he said. "This is the American Crusader speaking."

"Whoa," said the voice on the other end. "I'm actually speaking to the big cheese himself?"

"I suppose you are. What's the nature of your call, citizen?"

"Well, um, I'm part of this environmentalist committee, you see, and I think something hinky is going on. I mean, all I wanna do is see that our air and water don't get poisoned by polluters, that's why I joined up. That, and I thought it a good way to appear like a sensitive, caring guy around the ladies—know what I mean? But, I like Paragon City. I like my indoor plumbing and my electricity and my Playstation. I don't want to see this city reclaimed by nature."

Ben exchanged glances with Kari. "Who's going to reclaim the city for nature?"

"The Eco-Activist, man. He's crazy, man. He's a certifiable Froot Loop. He wants to use his plants to tear Paragon City apart."


	7. Chapter 7

**VII**

"According to the informant," Derek said, "the Eco-Activist is holing up inside Perez Park. The informant says the Eco-Activist is hiding out here, in Gaimon Woods. There's a mystical site formerly occupied by a Circle of Thorns coven that he's commandeered, perhaps in the belief that his powers will be stronger."

Ben, too antsy to sit, paced the floor as the warshade explained the tactical situation. He stopped to peer at the map of the park broadcast on the screen.

"It's tactically advantageous for him," Ben said. "With the forest that dominates most of the park, he has plenty of vegetation at his fingertips."

"What about the gangs in the forest?" Richard asked. "The Clockwork, the Circle of Thorns and others. Would they be working for him?"

"Probably not," Derek said. "If anything, he would have cleared the forest of those gangs first."

"We know from the tipster that the Eco-Activist plans to incite the various gang members into a riot," Ben said. "How he plans to do that, our informant doesn't know, but we're looking at a twofold threat here. The riots are intended to keep Paragons heroes and police department occupied while the Eco-Activist unleashes his vegetation. I've consulted with the leaders of the other supergroups, and they have stepped up their alert levels for increased gang activity. The Freedom Phalanx is already dealing with an incursion of Rikti remnants from the war, so their hands are tied in dealing with this new threat to Paragon."

"What it boils down to, Ben, is that the Eco-Activist is ours alone," Richard said.

Ben looked toward his brother, who sat at the conference table between Kari and Frost Axe. "Reinforced by Dave and his bots, yes."

"How do you want to go about this?"

Ben pointed to the section of the map labeled as Gaimon Woods, located in the southeastern portion of the park. "We'll hit him in a three-pronged attack. Richard, Lyta, and Frost Axe will hit first from the north. Once you have him engaged, Kari and Derek will attack from the east and Dave and I will hit from the west. Hopefully, the Eco-Activist will be unable to coordinate his plants on three fronts."

"Or the two flank attacks catch him by surprise," Lyta said.

"We'll need to slip into the forest and get into position quietly, without detection. If he has any sentries, they'll have to be dealt with quietly."

"We can expect his sentries, if any, to be recruited from the environmentalist groups he's contacted," Derek said. "Our biggest concern with them won't be their fighting prowess, but the possibility of their alerting the Eco-Activist."

"I can provide EM jamming transmitters that can be easily warn on our persons," Dave said. "They'll disrupt any communications, from a child's toy walkie-talkie to the most powerful cell phone signal. And I can tune it so it doesn't disrupt our own comms network."

Ben glanced at his brother. "Really."

"How do you think I planned on breaking into Crey facilities without having their guards converge on me?"

---

The jean- and t-shirt-clad sentry jumped as the three heroes approached him. He fumbled for the two-way radio clipped to his belt, and he finally got it free.

"One word," Frost Axe said, placing the edge of his axe blade against the closest tree, "and I start swinging."

The sentry moved the radio away from his lips. Richard stepped up and took the radio from him. The blue-clad hero crunched the radio in his grip and let the pieces fall to the forest floor.

"Dude, that's littering, man," the sentry said.

Richard pulled four fifty-dollar bills from a compartment on his belt. He took a locator beacon from another compartment and wrapped it with the notes. He placed the bill-wrapped beacon into the sentry's palm.

"When you see the cops," he said, "tell them that's my fine for littering."

"Dude, were you really going to hurt that defenseless tree?" the youth asked.

"You're working for a guy who wants to hurt hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings," Richard said.

"Along with extra-dimensional beings, Kheldians, other innumerable aliens, cyborgs, and anyone else living in Paragon City," Frost Axe added.

"So you see," Richard continued, "I ain't too worried about one tree."

He flicked the toggle on the beacon to activate its signal, and the young man was teleported directly to the Paragon City jail.

"You keep money on you while in costume?" Frost Axe asked.

"Super heroing can get a man mighty thirsty," Richard said. "I might want to stop somewhere for a soda after putting a bad guy away."

"But carrying a wad of fifties?"

"Well...that new PC game is supposed to be coming out today, and I was hoping to pick up a copy after this."

Frost Axe, peering through night vision goggles he held to his eyes, said, "Another lookout two hundred yards ahead and slightly—"

Lyta already had a blunt-tipped subduing arrow nocked. She fired, threading her shot through the boughs of three interposing trees.

"And he's down," Frosty said. "Do all Amazons have senses as sharp as yours?"

"It is how we survived," Lyta said.

Richard smiled at his wife. "Did you know that you're incredibly sexy when you shoot like that?"

Lyta smirked, an eyebrow arched. "Your society has this unnatural prudish need to completely cover yourselves. I suspect you would find a woman who does anything in what you call a bikini sexy."

"Well, yeah."

"Even doing something as mundane as bathing an automobile."

"Oh yeah," Richard said, images of Lyta washing the Wolf-jet while wearing her Amazon accouterments flashing through his mind. "And, baby, you wash a car, not bathe a car."

"It means the same thing, does it not?"

"Well, sorta."

"Perhaps we should save the nuances of English until later," Frosty said.

The trio approached the fallen man, who lay near a tree trunk, struggling to catch his breath. Richard stooped to attach a locator beacon on the man. He hit the activation switch, and the youth dematerialized.

Richard led Lyta and Frost Axe deeper into the thick foliage of Gaimon Woods.

---

Kari crouched low, scanning ahead with night vision goggles. She spotted a long-haired young man in a tie-dyed shirt and ratty jeans leaning against a tree. Puffs of smoke wafted as he took a drag off a filtered commercial cigarette. She moved quietly toward the sentry, concealed by a magical spell that rendered her invisible.

Derek, in his squid form and also concealed by Kari's magic, hovered over her shoulder.

The youth was caught completely unaware as Derek fired off one of his dark energy bolts. The sentry slumped unconscious to the ground, and Kari ground the cigarette out under a stiletto heel before it could ignite the foliage. She stooped to attach a locator beacon and flicked a switch. The young man dematerialized.

A nearby young woman, wearing clothing similar to the young man the heroes had just subdued, looked in their direction. Although Kari and Derek were still invisible, the disappearance of her counterpart was enough to raise the young woman's suspicions. She raised a radio to her lips.

Derek fired a bolt into her, dropping her. Kari placed a beacon on the sentry and sent her off to the Paragon City lock-up with her partner.

They were almost in their designated position.

The pair found no further sentries on their approach to the grove where the Eco-Activist was reported to be holing up. They arrived at the edge of the clearing and hunkered down behind a clump of bushes. The area was lit by bioluminescent plants, and Kari removed her night goggles.

The Eco-Activist was where the informant had said. He sat in an elaborate chair formed from vegetation, one leg crossed over the other. Three college-age young people—a man and two women—kept him company. The man seemed to stand watch as the women clung to the green-clad villain's arms, fawning over him. An older man, perhaps in his sixties, also occupied the clearing. He stood facing the Eco-Activist, reporting progress on the preparations.

Kari relaxed her invisibility, and as soon as she could see herself she pushed forward the cuff of her glove to check her watch. The time to strike was drawing close.

Derek, in his human form, hunkered next to her. He scanned continuously with his goggles. He nodded ahead, toward the opposite side of the clearing. Kari lifted her night goggles to briefly peer through them, saw the forms of Ben and Dave already in position. She scanned to her right and saw Richard, Lyta, and Frosty.

The predesignated time arrived, and Lyta signaled the attack by lofting a flash bang arrow into the midst of the Eco-Activist and his minions.

---

The flash bang worked as intended, and the villains in the clearing were disoriented. Ben and Dave waited as Richard and Frost Axe burst from the woods into the clearing. The two male minions attempted to interdict the heroes, but Richard and Frosty quickly defeated them. The women charged next, but Lyta netted both with her arrows.

The Eco-Activist stood, shaking off the effects of the flash bang. He called upon the powers of nature, and vines rose out of the ground to wrap around Richard and Frosty.

Richard's personal force field prevented the vegetation from obtaining a good hold; likewise, the vines seemed to slide off the sheath of ice that encased Frost Axe.

The Eco-Activist hurled a volley of thorns at the unconscious middle-aged man, killing him. Hideous carrion-devouring plants suddenly writhed from the corpse, snaking toward the heroes.

The Eco-Activist hurled another salvo of thorns, this time at the younger unconscious man. As the youth died, more carrion-eating vines emerged from the corpse.

The female minions screamed as the Eco-Activist turned toward them. Richard moved quickly, placing himself between the green-clad villain and the netted girls, spreading his cape wide between his raised arms. The thorns deflected away.

Richard placed locator beacons on the women and sent them to the safety of the Paragon City jail.

The Eco-Activist called up more plants, entangling both Lyta and Frosty. He threw salvos of thorns at the advancing Richard.

"Now," Ben said into his comms.

He and Dave emerged from their concealment as Kari and Derek simultaneously emerged from theirs. Dave's drones dropped down from the sky.

Energy beams, pulse blasts, electrical arcs, dark energy bolts, and streams of laser fire converged on the Eco-Activist. A sheath of vines grew from the ground and surrounded him, taking the bulk of the attack. As the protective vines burned to a crisp under the onslaught, the Eco-Activist called up the power of the plant kingdom.

A large Venus flytrap, about twice the height of an average man, grew from the underbrush and turned its maw toward the heroes. It flicked one of its stalks, peppering the drone Joshua with a hail of thorns. Most of the thorns were deflected away by the drone's protective bubble, but enough penetrated to hit vital systems. The drone toppled onto its side.

The carrion creeper vines writhed and flailed, reaching for Derek. The warshade unleashed his energy bolts at the vegetation, forcing the vines back. They relentlessly kept up their attack, reaching for the Kheldian.

The Eco-Activist extended his spike from his glove and lunged at the drone Hal, piercing its vitals and knocking it out of action.

Ben and Dave turned their weapons on the green-clad villain, driving him back.

The giant flytrap grabbed Richard in its maw and chewed on him as it attempted to pierce his force field and damage resistant suit. Lyta cried out in horror as she struggled to free her arms from the vines that entangled her and Frost Axe.

Frosty worked himself free and charged the flytrap. His axe clove through the plant's primary stalk, severing its maw and releasing Richard. The blue-clad hero tried to lever himself up, but some of the flytrap's digestive fluids had penetrated his protections.

Even as the flytrap crumpled to the ground, the Eco-Activist summoned another. The plant lunged at the helpless Lyta, but Ben and Dave concentrated their weapons blasts at the flytrap, knocking it away from the Amazon.

Kari, meanwhile, used her magic to heal Richard's wounds. The new flytrap swung its main stalk, batting Kari with its mouthed pod. She landed on her back, and the flytrap reared up in preparation for unleashing a volley of thorns at her.

Ben fired an energy burst at the plant, but it wasn't deterred.

Dave tapped the keypad on his forearm, and Hal's backup systems whirred to operation. The drone revived and moved between the flytrap and Kari. The volley of thorns struck Hal, and the drone toppled over.

Ben, meanwhile, swooped in and placed himself between the giant flytrap and his wife. He unloaded a torrent of energy at the carnivorous plant.

The Eco-Activist cackled as he summoned an army of entangling vines. Richard, Frost Axe, and Lyta were effectively immobilized by the snaking and constricting plants. They struggled, but the vegetation slowly squeezed the life out of them. Even as they broke free of one set of vines, another set grew from the ground at the Eco-Activist's command.

Derek had eliminated the carrion vines and joined Ben in pouring energy bolts into the flytrap.

"Sarah," Dave said, "recall Hal and Joshua to the lab. Let me know when you've put their memory chips into new bodies."

Ben didn't hear Sarah's reply, but Dave's drones dematerialized as they were teleported from the scene. Dave turned his rifle on the flytrap. Kari, meanwhile, had her full attention on the entangled heroes, using her magic to heal them as quickly as the constricting vines inflicted bodily damage.

Ben, Dave, and Derek finally succeeded in slaying the giant flytrap. Not to be defeated so easily, the Eco-Activist summoned another.

"Damn it," Dave growled. "Two can play that game."

He must have received word from Sarah that Hal and Joshua were ready. He cased his rifle and began tapping on the forearm keypad.

"Betrayer!" the Eco-Activist cried.

The newly summoned flytrap lashed at Dave. Its maw closed on Dave's left arm, crunching through his armor. Dave cried out as his left arm was ripped off at the shoulder. Crimson splashed onto the ground as he stumbled backward. He'd inadvertently put his back toward the Eco-Activist.

The green-clad villain extended his spike and plunged it into Dave's back. The point burst from his armored chest.

"No!" Ben cried as Dave slid off the Eco-Activist's spike.

Ben summoned all the energy his power cells could generate and unleashed it at the flytrap. The carnivorous plant was vaporized in a nova of explosive energy.

He turned his attention to the Eco-Activist, but his armor was drained of power. He still had his own muscles, however, and he launched himself at the green-clad villain with adrenaline-fueled rage. He tackled the Eco-Activist and bore him to the ground.

Ben pummeled the Eco-Activist with his gauntleted fist, slamming repeated blows into the villain's smug face. Even as his wire-rimmed glasses shattered away under the onslaught, the Eco-Activist laughed.

"Ben!" Kari cried. "Ben, you're going to kill him!"

Ben barely heard her as rage roared in his ears, and he continued to pummel the offensive villain. Until Kari grabbed his arm.

He turned his face toward his wife, peering into her eyes through his helmet goggles and her blue mask.

He took a locator beacon from his belt and attached it to the Eco-Activist's costume. He flicked the toggle, sending a signal directly to the Zig instead of the Paragon City jail. The Zig had the facilities to detain a super-powered inmate. The Eco-Activist dematerialized.

It was over.

Ben pulled his helmet off his head and whirled toward his fallen brother.

Dave was gone. Vanished.

"What—" he stammered.

"He was ported away," Derek said.

"The Mediport system?"

"Perhaps."

Ben looked at Kari. "Did you sense any life force in him?"

Kari pulled her mask down from her face and put a hand to her husband's cheek. "I...I didn't have the chance to check. I'm afraid his wounds were too severe even for my magic."

"But if he got medical attention at one of the hospitals..."

Kari said nothing. She leaned in and kissed his cheek. She nuzzled her face against his.

He knew she couldn't lie to him, which was why she didn't answer him. She wasn't confident that even Paragon's vaunted hospitals couldn't save his brother.

Meanwhile, no longer under the Eco-Activist's influence, the animated vegetation fell away, releasing the ensnared heroes. They all looked mournfully at Ben.

"That armored car incident is meaningless now," Richard said. "What Dave did for Paragon today, the price he paid, more than makes up for that."


	8. Chapter 8

**VIII**

Ben, in his civilian attire, strode from the front desk. "He's not here."

Kari, likewise wearing her street clothes, linked her arm through his. "What about the other hospitals?"

"He's nowhere in the Paragon hospital system."

"But we saw him ported away."

"We only assumed it was the Mediport system." He looked back at the receptionist desk. "His wounds were quite severe. I doubt he survived."

"Don't say that, honey. You have to believe that he survived."

"You don't even believe that."

She leaned her head against his.

---

Dave regained consciousness on a bed in his laboratory. He levered himself to a sitting position, peeling the sheets off. He found himself in his sweat pants, stripped from the waist up.

"You should rest, Dr. Grant," Sarah's soothing voice said.

He ached, but he otherwise felt fine. Hadn't he been run through by the Eco-Activist's skewering thorn weapon? He looked down, saw the cauterized line on his chest from a laser flesh sealer.

He then saw his left arm. A skeletal robotic arm was attached to his shoulder. He flexed the fingers—it responded to his brain impulses just like his natural arm.

"Do not worry, Dr. Grant, we are synthesizing flesh to cover your new arm. No one will know it's artificial."

Still somewhat groggy, his brain tried to comprehend what his eyes saw. "My arm...I'd lost my arm in that battle, too."

"You were seriously injured, Dr. Grant," Sarah said. "You were in a coma for five weeks. In that time we had to replace your arm and your heart."

"My heart?"

"You required a heart transplant, so I had an artificial one created for you."

"You built the heart?"

"From your plans for an artificial heart that is in your database."

"That was just a design, Sarah, I hadn't even built a prototype yet."

"The prototype is now pumping your blood, and quite splendidly I might add."

"How did you..." Dave put his hand to his forehead. "How did you do all this?"

"I am programmed to serve you, Dr. Grant. To protect you and your interests. When you were gravely injured, I thought I could use the facilities here to better save you than Paragon's hospitals."

"That's impressive, Sarah."

"Unfortunately, you had lost too much blood to your brain by the time you arrived here. You suffered some damage to your brain."

"How much?"

"Enough to hinder your motor skills, but thankfully your memory and personality centers remained intact. We had to replace the damaged parts of your brain with cybernetic implants."

Dave put a hand to the top of his skull, rubbing smooth skin. His hair had been shaved off, and he could feel the ridge of a scar much like that which adorned his chest.

"The implant now allows you to communicate directly to your robots via wireless connection," Sarah continued. "Your thoughts become their actions."

Dave slid off the bed and tested the strength of his leg muscles. His knees buckled, and he would have fallen to the floor if he hadn't clung to the bed. A drone ambled over, and Dave leaned against it.

"We have to move the lab, Sarah," he said. "I won't rest until Crey is dismantled, but I don't want to fight Paragon or its heroes."

"Then perhaps I may suggest the Rogue Isles, Dr. Grant."

Dave laughed. "The Rogue Isles? Arachnos's backyard?"

"It is outside the jurisdiction of the United States. And there is enough infighting among the powers that be in the Rogue Isles that you may implement your action against Crey without much attention. I understand that mid- and low-level Arachnos bureaucrats are open to bribery to look the other way, as they say."

"Ironic. I wanted nothing to do with Lord Recluse or his thugs when he broke me out of the Zig, and now I'm going to be right under his nose. All right, scout a location on the Rogue Isles and begin the move."

"As you wish, Dr. Grant."

Dave looked at his artificial arm. "David Grant is dead, Sarah. He died in Perez Park fighting alongside his brother. From here on out, I will go only by the name Dr. Robotico."

---

**Appendix: the Cast**

Simply for the interest of readers who play _City of Heroes_, here is a list of the archetypes of the characters featured in the story. All characters are on the Virtue server.

**Heroes**

American Crusader: Technology Blaster; energy blast primary, electricity manipulation secondary

Miss Michigan: Magic Defender; empathy primary, electrical blast secondary

Blue-Wolf: Technology Tanker; invulnerability primary, super strength secondary

Hyppolyta: Natural Defender; trick arrow primary, archery secondary

Shadow Vision: Science Warshade; umbral blast primary, umbral aura secondary

Frost Axe: Magic Tanker; ice armor primary, battle axe secondary

**Villains**

Doctor Robotico: Technology Mastermind; robotics primary, traps secondary

Eco-Activist: Magic Dominator; plant control primary, thorny assault secondary


End file.
